An intergovernmental agreement on the Nabucco gas pipeline project will be signed on July 13 in Ankara, Turkey by Turkey, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, a spokesman for the European Commission's energy policy told RIA Novosti.
The agreement will be signed by Turkey, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania under Germany's support," the agency reported.
The Nabucco project, estimated at $7.9 billion, is designed to pump Central Asian via Turkey to Austria through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. The project will be a continuation of the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline and is to transport 20 billion -30 billion cubic meters of gas a year. Two-thirds of the pipe length will pass across the Turkish territory.
Negotiations on the "Nabucco" whose one of the main issues is the guarantee of filling the gas line lasts more than one year. They were intensified in early 2009 after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian gas conflict. It is planned to begin construction of the gas pipeline in 2011, gas supplied through it - in 2014.
Among the potential gas suppliers for the pipeline are Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Iraq. The United States is against of Iran's participation in Nabucco and at the same time support the idea of transporting a gas to Europe via Iraq.
Russia is skeptical about the possibility of implementing the Nabucco project in the coming years. Earlier, The European Commission was planned to assign €250 million to finance the Nabucco, but then this figure was reduced by 50 million.