Europe’s natural gas supply has been the subject of controversy for several years. Pivotal to this is the conflict between Russia, as the main supplier of western and eastern Europe, and the Ukraine and Belarus. Russia has several times broken off its supply to these two countries, who are both entirely dependent on Russian natural gas. Out of a desire to reduce the severe dependency on Russia, various large projects are being discussed at the European level; these are planned to become the elements of a secure natural gas supply. A key project here is the Nabucco pipeline, which is intended to deliver natural gas to the west of Europe from the Caspian region, bypassing Russia.