Nabucco Consortium Presents Downsized Pipeline Project

Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH has submitted a smaller version of the ambitious gas pipeline project. Photo by Nabucco Consortium

The Nabucco Consortium presented Wednesday a revised, smaller version of the gas pipeline project called Nabucco West to the consortium developing the Shah Deniz II gas field in Azerbaijan.

"We are convinced that we have submitted a competitive and comprehensive proposal to the Shah Deniz II Consortium, and that this proposal represents a win-win situation for our shareholders and for suppliers alike," Reinhard Mitschek, Managing Director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, said in a statement.

The 1300-km pipeline Nabucco West is to carry Caspian gas from the Bulgarian-Turkish border to the Central European Gas Hub (CEGH) in Baumgarten and beyond.

Wednesday's media statement of the Nabucco Consortium did not specify the capacity of the new project.

The Nabucco group said that the revised version of the project would benefit from the existing legal framework such as the Intergovernmental Agreement, Project Support Agreements and third party access exemptions, that have already been negotiated.

The original pipeline was 3,900 kilometers long and ran from the Eastern border of Turkey to Baumgarten in Austria.

The Nabucco project aimed at lessening Europe's energy dependence on Russian energy was supposed to achieve a gas transport capacity of 31 billion cubic metres (bcm) a year.

Nabucco competes with a number of rival pipeline projects for Shah Deniz II gas.

The Shah Deniz II Consortium is to announce a winning project in the summer, a final investment decision due in 2013.

Nabucco's shareholders are Austria's OMV, Germany's RWE, Hungary's MOL, Turkey's Botas, Bulgaria's Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) and Romania's Transgaz.

MOL and RWE have questioned the feasibility of the original version of Nabucco, threatening to leave the project company.

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