OMV says construction of Nabucco pipe may start in 2015
Baku, May 12 (AZERTAC). OMV AG (OMV) said construction of the Nabucco natural gas pipeline to transport gas from the Caspian region to Europe may start in 2015, the Bloomberg agency reports.
Should the owners of the BP Plc-led Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan make a decision on whom to award its gas next year, construction could start in 2015 and be completed in 2018, OMV`s gas head Hans-Peter Floren told shareholders at the company`s annual shareholder meeting in Vienna.
Nabucco, which is a joint venture of OMV, Germany`s RWE AG (RWE), Budapest-based Mol Nyrt. (MOL), Bulgargaz EAD, Romania`s Transgaz SA and Ankara-based Boru Hatlari ile Petrol Tasima AS, has faced repeated delays after struggling to secure fuel sources. Mol said last month that it isn`t prepared to finance the pipe and may sell its stake.
Chief Executive Officer Gerhard Roiss told OMV`s shareholders today that Nabucco is “more important than ever” as it`s needed to transport gas from the OMV-Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) gas find in the Black Sea. “It`s important to have a pipeline in this region,” he said.
OMV said in February that it had found large gas reserves on the Romanian shelf of the Black Sea together with ExxonMobil.
The Nabucco project may now be cut to “Nabucco West” starting at the Turkish-Bulgarian border and be complimented by the Azeri-Turkish Trans-Anatolia Pipeline, known as Tanap, Roiss said.
The Shah Deniz Consortium continues studying the SEEP project. The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline project to connect Greece and Italy through Albania and the Adriatic Sea is another alternative.
A final decision is expected in mid-2013.
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