Nabucco construction will start on time

Construction of the Nabucco gas pipeline for the transport of natural
gas from the Caspian to Europe, bypassing Russia, will start on time
in 2011, official Nabucco spokesman Christian Dolezal said, the
Turkish business channel CNBC said.

According to Dolezal, 70% of expenses will be compensated by the
financial institutions and 30% - by consortium members.

"The EU has already provided us with a 200 million euro loan," -
Dolezal said as quoted by RIA Novosti.

He called Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iraq potential gas suppliers.
Nabucco is expected to have a capacity of 31 billion cubic meters of
gas yearly and, perhaps, even more, Dolezal said.

The Nabucco agreement was signed on 13 July 2009 on the transport of
gas through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania
and Australia. The pipeline will be 3300 km long, capable of
transporting 31 billion cubic meters of gas yearly.

This project is an extension of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline. Two
thirds of the pipeline will go through the territory of Turkey. The
estimated cost of the project is $7.9 billion.

Construction consortium members are Botas (Turkey), Bulgarian Energy
Holding (Bulgaria), MOL Plc (Hungary), OMV Gas & Power GmbH (Austria),
RWE (Germany) and Transgaz (Romania). Every participant has a share of
16.67%