Northern Iraqi gas production from the Pearl Production Co. could be available in five years to feed into the Nabucco gas pipeline and supply Europe, Austrian oil company OMV AG (OMV.VI) said Friday.
Northern Iraqi gas production from the Pearl Production Co. could be
available in five years to feed into the Nabucco gas pipeline and supply
Europe
,
Austrian oil company OMV AG (OMV.VI) said Friday.
"
Pearl
is
very important because they have access to a major gas field. It has the
capacity to produce an important part of the supply of Nabucco," said the
company's Chief Executive Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer at a press briefing in
London
. "The
gas is there and could be available in five years."
OMV owns a 10% stake in
Pearl
.
The 3,300 kilometer Nabucco pipeline is an ambitious project that aims to open
a new supply route for Central Asian and Middle Eastern gas to
Europe
via
Turkey
,
Bulgaria
,
Romania
,
Hungary
and
Austria
. The
project has the backing of the European Union, which sees it as a way to reduce
dependency on imports of Russian natural gas.
OMV,
Germany
's RWE
AG (RWE.XE),
Turkey
's
Botas, Bulgarian Energy
Holding
,
Romania
's
Transgaz and
Hungary
's MOL
Nyrt. (MOL.BU) are members of the Nabucco consortium. They plan to decide
whether to proceed with the project in the fourth quarter of 2010, with
operation due to commence in 2014.
Gas fields in northern
Iraq
could
be developed in several years and linked fairly quickly to
Turkey
through an inexpensive feeder pipeline, Ruttenstorfer said. He added that he is
confident that political tensions over energy exports from the Kurdish region
of
Iraq
will
have been resolved within the time frame of the Nabucco project.
The economic downturn that has left
Europe
with
a surplus of gas has not fundamentally changed the viability of Nabucco, said
Ruttenstorfer. "We are going to have an oversupply of gas in
Europe
for
the next three to five years," he said, but after that the region will see
its need for gas imports rising again.
The downturn has also had little impact on the projected EUR7.9 billion cost of
the pipeline, said Ruttenstorfer.
Partners in the Nabucco consortium will need to secure around half of the
pipelines planned 31 billion cubic meter a year capacity in order for the
project to get the go-ahead as scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2010.
In addition to Iraq, around half this gas will probably have to come from
Azerbaijan, so the decision from BP PLC (BP), Azeri state oil company Socar and
their partners on whether to proceed with the second phase of the Shah Deniz
gas project will be crucial, Ruttenstorfer said.
Many Nabucco consortium members are talking to the Azeris about gas supply, he
said.
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