Reuters reported that the Mr Obama administration told Congress that it strongly supported a Southern Corridor pipeline to bring natural gas from the Caspian region to Europe which would reduce the role of Russian supplies.

Mr Richard Morningstar US energy envoy for the Eurasian region said that "From the standpoint of U.S. policy goals, the best outcome is one that brings the most gas, soonest and most reliably, to those parts of Europe that need it most."

Mr Morningstar said that three pipeline consortiums are competing to bring natural gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas field to Europe and the investment decisions to make that possible should be made by the end of this year. However, the United States does not want the pipeline to move gas from Iran.

He said that the United States faces a difficult decision if it chooses to sanction the Shah Deniz gas project because a subsidiary of Iran's national oil company owns 10% of the operation. Iran would probably benefit if the project were hit with sanctions, because Iran needed gas. It's a serious policy issue.

(Sourced from Reuters)