Azerbaijan, Baku, June 18 / Trend , A.Badalova/
Signing of an intergovernmental agreement on the Nabucco gas pipeline was again postponed. The paper will be signed in July, Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz said. Earlier, the Turkish authorities reported that the signing will take place on June 25.
Earlier, Special Envoy of Hungary to Nabucco Mihály Bayer spoke about presence stagnation in the process of signing an intergovernmental agreement on the project, but he assured that, despite this, it will be signed by late of the first half of 2009.
The consortium on the project, however, has not yet called an exact date to ink the agreement. The exact date to sign the agreement remains unknown, but Turkey announced its postponement to early July, an official source of the Nabucco project in OMV company wrote to Trend in an email on June 18.
The paper is expected to be inked in Ankara.
The agreement will be signed by ministers of the Nabucco project member countries, the source said.
"Negotiations on the signing of an intergovernmental agreement were held amongst the ministries of Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and the European Commission," the source said.
The Nabucco project worth 7.9 billion euro will deliver Azerbaijani and Central Asian gas to the EU by 2014. Construction of the pipeline is expected to begin in 2011. Its maximum capacity will be 31 billion cubic meters per year. Nabucco shareholders are the Austrian OMV, Hungarian MOL, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas and German RWE with 16.7 percent each
The Nabucco Gas Pipeline International will invest 30 percent of the project on basis of its share.
The remaining 70 percent will be provided by international institutions.
At present the project in under a detailed engineering stage.
The source said the next step after the signing of an intergovernmental agreement will be the process of "open season" - accepting applications to fill the pipeline. Investment decisions for the project are expected to be taken in the first quarter of 2010.
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