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Managing Director: No competition between Nabucco West and South Stream projects

Oil&Gas Materials 13 April 2013 11:41 (UTC +04:00)
Nabucco West does not consider Russia’s South Stream as a competotor, Managing Director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, Reinhard Mitschek told New Europe.
Managing Director: No competition between Nabucco West and South Stream projects

Azerbaijan, Baku, April 13 / Trend A.Badalova /

Nabucco West does not consider Russia's South Stream as a competotor, Managing Director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, Reinhard Mitschek told New Europe.

"We do not really see South Stream as a competitor to Nabucco West," Mitschek said.

According to Mitschek, there is an inter-governmental agreement for Nabucco West with Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria, and the project has far developed engineering.

"I am confident that Nabucco will be realised, so I do not really see a real direct competition between South Stream and Nabucco," Mitschek said.

He added that the project has "very good status of negotiations" with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR ), BP, Norway's Statoil and France's Total, which are the partners of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development. He also reminded that Nabucco West has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) and discussed the technical interface with TANAP.

According to Mitschek, the Balkans is a priority for Nabucco West.

"We have a direct Nabucco market that is Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria; we have a neighbouring market that is all the countries in western Balkans and we have an associated market that includes Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and France.

According to Mitschek, all these markets can be easily reached by Nabucco. "Therefore, we can offer to the Azeris here not only the 60-billion-cubic-metre market in southeast Europe, but the whole 500-billion-cubic-metre market in Europe," Mitschek added.

Nabucco West is a short-cut version of Nabucco project, which envisages construction of the pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. Gas to be produced within the second phase of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development is considered as the main source for the project.

The project's current shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV and Hungary's FGSZ.

Earlier, in late March, Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH submitted a Pipeline Decision Support Package to the Shah Deniz Consortium, which contains all of the important elements requested by the producers to establish a commercial value chain for Azerbaijani gas

The final decision on the pipeline route to transport Azerbaijani gas to Europe will be made in June, 2013.

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