Azerbaijan, Baku, July 2 / Trend A.Badalova /
Shah Deniz consortium's decision to choose Nabucco West pipeline as a potential option for export gas to central Europe, could bring an end to uncertain period for the project, Dow Jones reported with the reference to Gungarina MOL spokesman Domokos Szollar.
"This could bring an end to the long period of uncertainty resulted from the infeasibility of the original Nabucco plan," Szollar said in an e-mailed comment.
Last week the consortium of Azerbijani Shah Deniz gas field development chose Nabucco West as the single pipeline option for the potential export of Shah Deniz Stage 2 gas to Central Europe. The decision was made on the basis of the publicly communicated selection criteria announced in 2011. According to the decision, development of the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP) project will cease.
Szollar stressed that this decision confirms the company's previous standpoints that the original Nabucco concept wasn't sustainable. However, a shortened version of the project with reduced capacity can be still viable, Szollar believes.
In April MOL cast serious doubts about the Nabucco project and said it is ready to sell its share in it. According to MOL, Nabucco's source of natural gas and financing are both uncertain and the company has experienced "a continuous increase regarding the costs of the realization of the project, while it is still unclear how much the final cost will be."
MOL is a 100-percent owner of FGSZ Natural Gas Transmission Company, which is one of the six shareholders in Nabucco gas pipeline project designed to transport gas from the Caspian region and Middle East to Europe. Gas to be produced during the second stahe of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development is considered as the main source for the project.
Nabucco West is a short-cut version of Nabucco project, which envisages construction of the pipeline from Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. The Nabucco West Proposal was submitted by Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH on 16 May, 2012. The project's other shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV and German RWE.