Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 28 / Trend A.Badalova /
Shareholders of Nabucco gas pipeline project will discuss project implementation issues at a meeting in Vienna on Tuesday.
"We confirm that there is a regular shareholders meeting of the Nabucco shareholders in Vienna today. Shareholders meetings take place on a monthly basis and we discuss the project related topics," Reinhard Mitschek, Managing Director, Nabucco Gas Pipeline International wrote Trend via e-mail on Tuesday.
Mitschek declined to disclose any details to be discussed at shareholders meetings.
Nabucco gas pipeline is one of the Southern Gas Corridor projects. Gas produced during the second stage of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development is to be the main source for the Nabucco project.
The project's partners include Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV, German RWE and Hungary's FGSZ.
The construction of Nabucco pipeline with maximum capacity of 31 billion cubic meters is planned to start in 2013 and its first supplies are scheduled for 2017.
On Tuesday Reuters reported with the reference to the Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, who was interviewed by broadcaster CNBC-e, that a merger of the Azerbaijan-Turkish Trans-Anatolian natural gas pipeline (TANAP) and Nabucco project will be discussed at a meeting.
TANAP is a proposed Azerbaijan-Turkish project which envisages a construction of a pipeline from the eastern border of Turkey to the country's western border. Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the consortium that will build the gas pipeline. The cost of TANAP will be set by SOCAR and may be close to the figure of $5 billion.
Mitschek also stressed that Nabucco project has provided an offer to the consortium of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development for transport services from the Georgian / Turkish border to Baumgarten in Austria .
"So far this concept has not been changed," Mitsche said.
The original concept of Nabucco project envisaged the construction of the pipeline from the Georgian-Turkish and Iraqi-Turkish borders to Baumgarten. The pipeline with the capacity at 31 billion cubic metres was expected to run through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria over a distance of 3,900 kilometres.