Russia may join Nabucco

An investment decision on Nabucco gas pipeline project will be made this year.Russia may join the pipeline later, Director General of the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International (NGPI) Reinhard Mitchek told Vilaggazdasag paper on Thursday.

NGPI may hold an auction for realization of the open-season pipeline this year in cooperation with the European Commission and energy authorities of participants of the project.

Mitchek said that Azerbaijan and Iraq, and later Turkmenistan, will provide the first gas for the project. Russia may provide gas through Turkmenistan. There have been no direct talks on Russian participation in the project so far.

The NGPI director general said that the project expenses may exceed 7.9 billion euro. NGPI will analyze which of the three private companies – MOL (Hungary), OMV (Austria) or RWE (Germany) will present the state grant equal to 1.7 billion euro. Botas (Turkey), Transgaz (Romania) and Bulgargaz (Bulgaria) will not provide the grants.

Nabucco will use a “single-window” system, where the NGPI will negotiate the gas contracts with suppliers, making all transit deals unnecessary.

Mitchek said that the AGRI project, involving liquefied gas transport from Azerbaijan to Central Europe via the Black Sea and Romania, will not draw off investments from Nabucco. He added that Europe needs all sources of gas.

Nabucco construction is planned to start in 2012. First gas supplies are expected in 2015. The pipeline cap is 31 billion cubic meters of gas annually. The pipeline will be 3300 km long.

MOL (Hungary), OMV (Austria), RWE (Germany), Botas (Turkey), Transgaz (Romania) and Bulgargaz (Bulgaria) are the participants of the project. Each has a share of 16.67%.