The pipeline is projected to carry 8bn cum/yr of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz offshore field in the first phase; with at least 1t cum in estimated reserves, Shah Deniz has huge potential for supplying considerably more gas than will be used in the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) and the planned Turkey-Austria (Nabucco) pipelines. The GUEU pipeline is aimed at supplying gas to Poland via the Black Sea and Ukraine with a relatively modest first-phase volume, and is therefore not intended to compete with BTE or Nabucco for upstream resources or downstream markets. The GUEU project offers an additional, necessary outlet for Caspian gas. The planned GUEU pipeline would branch off from the BTE near Tbilisi and run for approximately 100km to the Supsa area on Georgia's Black Sea coast, from where it would continue subsea for 650km to Feodosia in Ukraine's Crimea, and then onshore for 200km to link up with Ukraine's gas transit mainlines exporting gas to Poland. The Crimea section could be sized at 20in, although the anticipated diameter of the Georgian section is 42in, and for the subsea section is 24in. The GUEU project is based on using the Ukrainian transit network's spare capacity to deliver Caspian gas to Poland and onwards westwards. The Ukrainian network already has spare capacity, and will have more after 2010 when Russia is expected to switch some export volumes from Ukrainian pipelines into the new North Stream Russia-Germany pipeline. However, in the event that Russia took control of the Ukrainian network, the GUEU project would be rerouted across the Black Sea to reach EU territory landfall in Romania at a point north of Constanta. Regardless of the final subsea route, the GUEU pipeline would have to cross the existing Blue Stream pipeline at considerable depth on the Black Sea's seabed. The project therefore envisages constructing a pipeline overbridge, which will be technically quite challenging. Investment for the project's first phase is estimated at $2bn over a five-year period, based on a throughput of 8bn cum/yr of gas. The second phase would add another 8bn cum/yr of gas, either from Shah Deniz or from Kazakhstan by the trans-Caspian pipeline; this expansion would require a parallel 24-in diameter pipeline on the seabed from Georgia to the Crimea. A third phase would add another 16bn cum/yr of gas from Turkmenistan, based on the expectation that trans-Caspian links would be in place by that time. In that relatively-optimistic event, GUEU could carry a total 32bn cum/yr of Caspian gas to the EU. The GUEU project is seen as one of the politically-safest and shortest export routes for Caspian gas to the EU.