Nabucco Expecting "Good News" from Shah Deniz

MD of troubled pipeline project Nabucco, Reinhard Mitschek, has said that he expects to hear "good news" the Shah Deniz consortium in the coming weeks.

The comment, which was reported by Mediafax news agency, did not expand on what the good news might entail, but such a timeline coincides with the expected timing of a decision on which pipeline will carry gas from the Shah Deniz-2 project.

BP chief executive for marketing and refining Iain Conn said last month that a decision on the successful pipeline would be reached in June, with Nabucco and SEEP the two pipelines in the running for the central European transit of Shah Deniz gas.

However, he also said at that time that the "classic" Nabucco project was definitely off the table, with only a revised and shortened route, the Nabucco West pipeline, in the running.

BP is the operator of the Shah Deniz consortium.

State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) refuted the comments in the days following Mr. Conn's comments, saying the original Nabucco plan was still in the running for the pipeline contract. SOCAR said that the views were BP's private opinion and not a definite decision.

Mr. Mitschek said today that he expects the Nabucco West project to provide a capacity of 20 billion cubic metres of gas a year. This is despite an initial capacity of between 10-16 billion cubic metres a year, publics.bg reports him as saying. This capacity will bring with it lower investment costs and shareholder equity payments, the MD said.