VIENNA (Dow Jones)--The consortium behind the planned Nabucco pipeline Wednesday said the choice of the sixth company to join the consortium still needs to be signed off by some of the current partner companies.
"We are still waiting for a couple of formal approvals, but expect to receive them shortly," consortium spokesman Christian Dolezal told Dow Jones Newswires, declining to name the company due to be approved.
Earlier Wednesday, a media report quoted the Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler as saying the decision has been made in favor of German utility company RWE AG (RWE.XE).
Neither RWE nor Austria's OMV AG (OMV.VI), which has been the driving force behind the project, wished to confirm the Turkish minister's information Wednesday.
The consortium behind the Nabucco pipeline - a planned 3,300 kilometers-long natural gas pipeline, which is to source gas from the Caspian region and transport it to Europe from 2012 - consists of OMV, Hungary's MOL (MOL.BU), Romania's Transgaz, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz and Turkey's Botas.
The supervisory boards of all five companies must submit signed approvals, before the choice of a sixth partner can be officially announced, the consortium has said.