The full implementation of the Nabucco gas pipeline becomes less probable every year, the U.S State Department special envoy on energy issues in Eurasian region Richard Morningstar said at the conference on "Natural gas and Ukraine's energy future", RIA Novosti reported.
"Nabucco" project is intended to transport natural gas from the Caspian region and Middle East to the EU countries. Its construction is scheduled to begin in 2013 with commissioning in 2017. Its maximum capacity will hit 31 billion cubic meters per year. "Nabucco" participants are the Austrian OMV, Hungarian MOL, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas and German RWE.
"It became clear that it is more difficult to implement the project from the financial and temporal points of view," Morningstar said.
He said that this project has been discussed for several years. Moreover, the implementation of such a massive gas pipeline will require considerable time. In this case, there can be problems with its content.
Morningstar said that it would be better to focus on gas supplies via the south direction to the most vulnerable countries in terms of gas, in particular the Balkans. He said that this idea can be implemented in particular through the construction of inter-connector with Turkey.
"Of course, "Southern Gas Corridor" will work, but its capacity will be accelerated gradually,' he said. "There will not be large volumes."