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EU energy commissioner discusses Nabucco in Turkey

06 November 2008 12:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Rashad Suleymanov â€“ APA-Economics. The energy commissioner of the European Union started his visit to Ankara on Thursday.
Andris Piebalgs met Thursday high-level Turkish officials, including the countryâ€™s President Abdullah Gul and the prime minister, and is expected to make a push for the Nabucco gas pipeline project that faces stiff competition from Russia, Hurriyyet reports.
Piebalgs will try to unblock talks for a gas transmission accord. The European Commission is confident the Turkish transit deal can be signed by the end of year.
Although the project has a huge political support from the EU and the partner countries as well as the U.S., challenges remain in place with increasing costs and delays in the final agreements.
Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler told HotNewsTurkey that his government has signed the drafts of host-governmental and inter-governmental agreements and sent them to its partners.
The Nabucco pipeline, which will be one-third financed by the owners, and two-thirds by banks, is meant to diversify and lessen Europeâ€™s dependence on Russian gas from 2013.
The project requires two million tonnes of steel, 200,000 pipes and more than 30 compressor units.
The pipeline consortium - Nabucco Gas Pipeline International Ltd. is equally owned (16.67% each) by Austriaâ€™s OMV, Hungaryâ€™s MOL, Turkeyâ€™s Botas, Bulgariaâ€™s Bulgargaz and Romaniaâ€™s Transgaz and Germanyâ€™s RWE.
Named after the Babylonian king in the eponymous opera by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, the pipeline will take 31 billion cubic meters of gas each year from the Middle East to Europe from 2012 at the earliest. It is likely to deliver the first gas to Europe in 2013.