These pipelines don’t compete, says Jonathan Stern of Oxford, because the Russian one just seeks a new route for existing supplies at 4x the project cost, while the other has no supply or purchase contracts yet.  Stern also thinks that despite Gazprom’s reach into Nigeria and Venezuela, this is just politics more than a real threat of monopoly.

From the FT’s energy blog:

Professor Stern says Gazprom needs the South Stream pipeline to
shore up its own transit. The company’s biggest problem is unreliable
transit countries, he says, and points out the company is also
suffering from the low prices set by the government at home in Russia -
its biggest market.

But for Nigeria and Venezuela? Political motives are much more
likely there, Stern believes: “No one expects Gazprom to make vast sums
of money in Nigeria and Venezuela.”

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