Nabucco Sees a Larger Consortium

The CEO of the company proposing the Nabucco Gas Pipeline said the consortium expects to rebound from the loss of partners to form a joint venture comprising of nine to ten shareholders.

Reinhard Mitschek looked past the expected departure of RWE, which will follow the earlier move by Hungary's MOL, highlighting the recent agreement with the consortium developing the second phase of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas field.

On January 18th, Nabucco and the Shah Deniz partners signed a Cooperation Agreement and a Equity Option and Funding Agreement in Vienna.

The Equity Option and Funding Agreement, in particular, envisages joint funding of the development costs of the Nabucco West up to the pipeline selection decision for Shah Deniz' European export route, as well as the granting to SOCAR, BP, Statoil and Total of equity options of 50 percent to participate as shareholders in NIC following the selection decision by the Shah Deniz Consortium in favour of Nabucco West project to deliver Caspian gas to Europe as part of the Southern Gas Corridor.

Mitschek commented that once the equity option will be executed by the four partners on the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field's development they will join the project