Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 16 / Trend A.Badalova /
The change of Nabucco gas pipeline project's conception was a big step forward, BP's Vice President for Shah Deniz Full Field Development Alasdair Cook said in an interview with the Financial Times.
"We believe Nabucco West is a much improved offer. We're really pleased," Cook said.
Nabucco Gas Pipeline International proposed a new conception of the project (Nabucco-West) to the Shah Deniz consortium, according to which the pipeline will be laid from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to the Austrian Baumgarten. The project's original concept envisages the construction of the pipeline with the length at 3,900 kilometres from the Georgian-Turkish and Iraqi-Turkish borders to Baumgarten. The pipeline is expected to run through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria.
According to some sources, Nabucco pipeline's capacity (at 31 billion cubic metres) can be also downsized by twice.
According to Cook, BP is convinced that it would be wiser to build a smaller pipe that could be increased over time as more gas becomes available.
Earlier Nabucco Gas Pipeline International Managing Director Reinhard Mitschek, told Trend that Nabucco consortium continues supporting the project's original conception, adding that at the same time different scenarios of the project are currently being evaluating in order to find the best solution for suppliers and transportation customers.
Experts believe that Nabucco project's original conception lost all chances for implementation after Azerbaijan and Turkey announced the idea of building their own pipeline across Turkey - Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP).
TANAP envisages a construction of a pipeline with the initial capacity at 16 billion cubic metres per year from the eastern border of Turkey to the country's western border. The cost of TANAP will be set by SOCAR and may be close to the figure of $5 billion.
Azerbaijan and Turkey are going to sign an intergovernmental agreement on TANAP next week.
Cook said BP has been invited to join TANAP group and will decide whether to invest in a matter of months.