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OMV and RWE to jointly own Caspian Energy Company Ltd

24 December 2008 10:35 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Nijat Mustafayev â€“ APA-Economics. Austriaâ€™s OMV and Germanyâ€™s RWE are to jointly own the â€œCaspian Energy Company Ltd.â€ (CEC) newly set up in London.
OMVâ€™s office in Baku said the venture has been set up in order to explore comprehensive infrastructure solutions that will link the vast gas resources of the Caspian region to Europe. The joint ownership of CEC by both OMV and RWE is subject to approval by the relevant competition authorities. Once approval is granted, OMV and RWE will hold equal shares of CEC. Further qualified parties will be invited to participate in the company at a later stage.
The company will next year review gas transport infrastructure options that could provide Europe with access to natural gas from the eastern side of the Caspian Sea,
Based on the studyâ€™s outcome, the CEC will then enter into the development, construction, ownership and operation of gas transport systems across the Caspian Sea. The respective gas could then be fed into the existing â€œSouth Caucasus Gas Pipelineâ€ or other newly built pipelines and from there on into Turkey and the â€œNabucco Gas Pipelineâ€, which will form the backbone of this â€œSouthern Gas Corridorâ€.
OMV is the largest oil and gas group in Central Europe, with oil and gas reserves of approx. 1.22 bn boe, daily production of around 316,000 boe and an annual refining capacity of approx. 26 mn t. OMV now has 2,524 filling stations in 13 countries. The market share of the group in the R&M business segment in the Danube Region is now 20%. Via Baumgarten, one of the most important turntables for gas in Europe, approximately 64 bcm gas is transported annually. OMVâ€™s Central European Gas Hub is amongst the three largest hubs in Continental Europe.
RWE Supply & Trading is a market leader in Europe for energy trading and ranks number 6 in the European gas business (procurement volume around 40 bcm per annum).
The 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.