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Nabucco consortium: â€œInformation on merging of Nabucco and South Stream is not truthâ€

13 January 2011 12:18 (UTC +04:00)

According to consortium, there are no considerations on the part of the consortium in this regard. Nabucco is on its own a very competitive project.The Nabucco project has made significant progress last year with the start of the Environmental & Social Impact Assessment; the signing of a mandate letter with the EBRD, EIB and IFC. The start of the front-end engineering design of the two feeder lines in Turkey, as well as the first pre-qualification process for long lead items. All these elements are crucial in the development of the pipeline and serve to show that Nabucco is the most advanced project in the Southern Corridor.â€

Remind that, the Nabucco pipeline (also referred as Turkeyâ€“Austria gas pipeline) is a proposed natural gas pipeline from Erzurum in Turkey to Baumgarten an der March in Austria diversifying natural gas suppliers and delivery routes for Europe. The pipeline attempts to lessen European dependence on Russian energy. The project is backed by several European Union states and the United States and is seen as rival to the Gazprom-led South Stream pipeline project. At the same time, there are some doubts concerning viability of supplies. The main supplier is expected to be Iraq in cooperation with Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and possibly Egypt.

Preparations for the Nabucco project started in 2002 and the intergovernmental agreement between Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria was signed on 13 July 2009. The project is developed by the consortium of six companies. The final investment decision is scheduled to be made in 2011. If built, the pipeline is expected to be operational by 2015 and it will carry 31 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.

South Stream is a proposed gas pipeline to transport Russian natural gas to the Black Sea to Bulgaria and further to Italy and Austria. The project would partly replace the planned extension of Blue Stream from Turkey through Bulgaria and Serbia to Hungary and Austria, and is seen as rival to the planned Nabucco pipeline. The completion is due by 2015.