"This is just the beginning. The decision to build TAP and later to deliver more gas also means that the supply path to Austria - Nabucco West at the moment - is still in the conversation," he said.
Nabucco West proposed a route that would have collected the Azeri gas from a pipeline in Turkey and carried to Austria via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. TAP, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, will also start in Turkey, but instead cross Greece and Albania before reaching southern Italy. Azeri energy company SOCAR picked TAP over Nabucco West on June 28 but it, too, said future gas supplies could be sent to central Europe.