Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept.14 / Trend, N. Ismayilova /
German RWE AG, a member of the Nabucco Gas Pipeline Consortium said on Tuesday that the project will progress as a result of the European Commission's decision to grant a mandate to start negotiations with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline.
According to the RWE Executive Board member Leonhard Birnbaum, the EU negotiations with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan will accelerate the process of ensuring agreements on gas supplies to the Nabucco gas pipeline project, Dow Jones reports.
"If negotiations are successful, gas will be enough [to fill the pipeline] even without [supplies from] Northern Iraq," Birnbaum said.
Nabucco envisages gas supplies from the Caspian region and the Middle East to the EU countries. Participants of the project are Austrian OMV, Hungarian MOL, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas and German RWE companies. Each of participants has equal share to the amount of 16.67 percent. The project's construction is planned to start in 2013. The first supplies via the pipeline are scheduled for 2017. The pipeline's maximum capacity will hit 31 billion cubic meters per year.