Austria’s OMV and Germany’s RWE are starting a joint venture to carry out exploration for a gas pipeline across the Caspian Sea that could feed into the Nabucco link to Europe, OMV said yesterday.
The venture, called Caspian Energy Company, will next year review gas transport infrastructure options that could provide Europe with access to natural gas from the eastern side of the Caspian Sea, OMV said.
Based on the study’s outcome, the company plans to build and operate gas transport systems across the Caspian Sea which could link to existing or newly built pipelines toward Turkey and the planned Nabucco gas pipeline, it said.
OMV and RWE are both part of the Nabucco consortium, which plans to build a 7.9-billion-euro ($11.1 billion), 3,300-kilometer (2,051-mile) gas pipeline from Turkey to Austria. The Caspian pipeline project would provide a feed into that pipeline. Nabucco separately confirmed yesterday that its financing was on track despite the global financial crisis.
(KATHIMERINI, 23/12/2008)