The Nabucco Consortium, which is developing the Nabucco gas pipeline, has presented a modified pipeline concept with one third the length of the original proposal to developers of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II gas field, a possible core supply source for Nabucco, the consortium said on Thursday.
The concept, named Nabucco-West, proposes construction of a 1,300 km pipeline from the Bulgarian-Turkish border to Austrian city of Baumgarten and beyond. The pipeline length in the initial project proposal was planned to be 3,900 kilometers.
"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," Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH Managing Director Reinhard Mitschek was quoted in a statement as saying.
Nabucco, which is intended to pump 31 billion cubic meters of natural gas, is part of the EU's effort to diversify its natural gas supplies and reduce the region's dependence on Russian gas.
The Nabucco project is in doubt as no final decision has yet been made about pipeline routes, financing and gas supply sources. In an attempt to find the suppliers, the project participants are in talks with Azerbaijan to transport gas from the Shah Deniz II field, which is being developed by BP, Azerbaijan’s Socar and Norway's Statoil.
The Nabucco project's shareholders are Austria's OMV, Hungary's MOL, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz as well as Romania's Transgaz, Turkey's Botas and Germany's RWE with equal stakes of 16.67 percent.
Russia's South Stream pipeline project, designed to deliver up to 63 billion cubic meters of Central Asian and Russian natural gas under the Black Sea to Europe, is generally regarded as a rival to the Nabucco pipeline.
