The Nabucco pipeline aimed at pumping gas to Europe bypassing Russia will use Iraq and Azerbaijan as its first main sources, the head of the company running the project said Thursday.
Reinhard Mitschek told reporters here that the first deliveries of gas through the pipeline, due 2014, would come from these two countries, which would "allow it not to be dependent on a single source."
Nabucco is a key pipeline project aimed at reducing Europe's dependence on Russian gas supplies, notably following a pricing dispute between Russia and neighboring Ukraine that saw supplies to the west cut off in darkest winter.
The European Union said last month that it was in talks with Azerbaijan on providing gas to supply Nabucco, a 3,300-kilometer project between Turkey and Austria.
A partnership is also planned with Iraq's Petroleum Co. Ltd., based in the oil-rich Kurdish region in the north of the war-scarred country, he said.
Austrian company OMV (OMV.VI) and MOL Nyrt. (MOL.BU) of Hungary have stakes in the Iraqi firm, and others in Germany, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania are involved in the project, whose overall cost is estimated at EUR7.9 million.
The project will avoid piping gas through Russia, but Mitschek didn't rule out involving Russia gas suppliers in the contracts.