Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said late Wednesday that a sixth partner for the Nabucco Project will be selected within the next few weeks, the Ihlas News Agency, or IHA, has reported Wednesday.
Speaking following a meeting with Hungarian Economy Minister Janos Koka and executives of Hungarian energy firm MOL Nyrt., Guler also said they want to launch the project after a meeting with the partners in Budapest in the second week of April.
The estimated EUR4.6 billion Nabucco project is a proposed 3,300 kilometers long-pipeline planned to transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, thereby reducing Russia's dominance as gas supplier to Europe.
The pipeline is to be built by a consortium consisting of OMV AG , Hungary's MOL, Romania's Transgaz, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz and Turkey's BOTAS. Construction is expected to commence in 2009, while completion is anticipated for 2012.
However, the project that aims to bring upwards of 30 billion cubic meters a year of gas from the Turkish pipeline system, of which up to 15 Bcm/year is destined for Austria, still has no gas supply contracts lined up. Additionally, all the countries through which the pipeline will run are relatively small markets compared to the size of the line, and are already well supplied with gas from Russia.
The current partners on the project are still looking for major end users to bring credibility to the project. Germany's RWE AG and Gaz de France have been widely reported as among the bidders to be the sixth partner.
Some reports previously claimed that Turkey won't accept the French firm as the sixth backer of the project as France supports the idea that mass killings of Armenians under Ottoman rule during World War I was a genocide, which Turkey vehemently opposes.
Egypt, Caspian states of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan as well as Iran and Iraq are also possible gas suppliers of the Nabucco Project.
Recently, the Hungarian government said it doesn't see Iran as a potential supplier for the project because Iranian political and economic reliability remained an issue, and Tehran would need to build an extensive pipeline system to be able to supply Nabucco.
However, Turkey signed an electricity cooperation agreement with Iran Tuesday and said it will continue signing agreements with Iran, especially on oil and gas projects despite opposition from the U.S.
Hungarian Economics Minister Janos Koka, together with MOL executives left for a tour of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to assess supply possibilities for Nabucco.