A final decision on whether the European Union's flagship Nabucco gas
pipeline can go ahead has been put back until early next year, the
Austrian partner in the consortium, OMV AG, according to the
WirtschaftsBlatt daily.
"The final decision will be made in the first quarter of
2008," instead of the end of this year, OMV gas chief Werner Auli is
reported as saying by the paper.
The 3,300-kilometer (2,050-mile) Nabucco pipeline, scheduled
for completion in 2012, is to transport gas to the E.U. from the Middle
East and Asia so as to reduce the 27-nation bloc's reliance on Russian
supplies.
Supply interruptions after recent standoffs between Russia,
the world's biggest exporter of gas, and key transit countries Ukraine
and Belarus have stoked fears in Europe of an overdependence on Russian
energy sources.
But critics argue that Nabucco would need gas from Iran,
holder of the world's second-largest gas reserves, for the project to
be profitable.
Consortium partners, OMV of Austria, MOL Nyrt. (MOL.BU) of
Hungary, Transgaz SA of Romania, Bulgargaz of Bulgaria and
Botas of Turkey, don't agree.
"We know the chicken-before-the-egg problem," Auli told the
newspaper. "But we're practically fully booked already now," he
countered.
Earlier this week, a spokesman for E.U. Energy Commissioner
Andris Piebalgs argued that the issue of Iranian gas was "irrelevant"
for the realization of the Nabucco pipeline.
"Iranian gas is neither necessary nor desired for Nabucco's
realization at this stage," said Piebalgs' spokesman Ferran Tarradellas
Espuny.
The European Commission is convinced that the Caspian Sea
region can provide large amounts of gas for the Nabucco pipeline even
without gas deliveries from Russia and Iran, the spokesman said.
Another issue that has to be resolved is the search by Nabucco's current five partners for a sixth partner.
Auli refused to say whether RWE AG (RWE.XE) of Germany or
French giant Gaz de France might sign up to the project.