Azerbaijan, Baku, May 25 / Trend A.Badalova /
The shareholders of Nabucco gas pipeline project and the Shah deniz consortium still negotiate on the best solution to transport Azerbaijani gas, Nabucco gas Pipeline International reported on Friday.
"The Nabucco Consortium submitted a proposal in September 2011 to the Shah Deniz II Consortium for the Nabucco base case. In May 2012, we submitted an additional proposal for the Nabucco West scenario. Negotiations between the Nabucco Shareholders and the Shah Deniz II partners are currently ongoing to find the best solution," Nabucco consortium's official statement says.
Earlier Reuters reported with the reference to BP's head of fuel refining and marketing Iain Conn that original concept of Nabucco gas pipeline project is no longer considered as a possible export route for Azerbaijani gas. According to Conn, the partners on Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development are now considering only two options to transport gas - Nabucco West, which is a shorter version of original project and the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP).
Nabucco 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 a new conception of the project, the pipeline will be laid from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to the Austrian Baumgarten.
Proposed by BP, SEEP envisages gas transportation through existing or expanded infrastructure of Turkey to the Balkan Peninsula, and then the distribution of 10 billion cubic meters from the second stage of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development to small buyers, including Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and others via the existing gas pipelines system.
The choice between the projects aimed at transporting gas to Central European direction will be made in June.
The final decision on a pipeline route to export Azerbaijani gas to the European markets is expected to be made in 2013.