Platts: No final decision on Azeri gas route to Europe until 2013: BP

The partners developing the giant $20 billion Shah Deniz Phase Two (SD2) project will delay taking a final decision on an export pipeline system until 2013, but will go ahead with choosing a "semi-finalist" for prospective delivery of Azerbaijani gas to central and southern Europe by the end of June 2012.

BP Georgia Manager Neil Dunn told a conference in Tbilisi Wednesday that the Shah Deniz consortium, for which BP is the operator, is drawing up a short list of prospective delivery systems to southern and central Europe, including a truncated version of the Nabucco project known as Nabucco West.

"By the end of June, there will be a single option for delivery to Italy, and a single option for delivery to (Central) Europe," Dunn said.  MORE