Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 12 /Trend/
Austrian company OMV, which is one of the shareholders in Nabucco project, said that the first gas could be flow through the pipeline only in 2018, Reuters reported according to the Austria Press Agency.
Gerhard Roiss, the chief executive of Nabucco shareholder OMV said first gas supplies would flow through Nabucco in 2018 and that this "was the latest information which we have," APA said.
Nabucco gas pipeline project envisages gas supplies from the Caspian region and the Middle East to the EU countries. Azerbaijan and Iraq are considered as the main suppliers at the first stage of the project. Azerbaijan plans to deliver 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Europe under Phase 2 of the Shah Deniz gas-condensate field development.
The current participants of Nabucco 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.
In early May, the Nabucco consortium has announced about the postponement of the project's implementation terms. The pipeline's construction was scheduled for 2013, while the first gas supplies via the pipeline were expected in 2017.
The consortium explained it with the necessity of synchronization of the project's implementation terms with the gas production terms in Central Asia and Middle East.
Nabucco pipeline's maximum capacity will hit 31 billion cubic meters per year.
On October 1, Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH along with the other pipeline projects submitted a comprehensive transportation proposal to the Shah Deniz 2 consortiumm, which will make its decision on preferred transportation route by the end of this year.
