Europe's Nabucco project shareholders should get the gas
supply deals needed to build the pipeline by the end of 2010 or early 2011,
Nabucco's managing director said at the Reuters Global Energy Summit.
Reinhard Mitschek also said he was confident Nabucco would
sell the gas at a good price when it opens in 2014.
The 3300-kilometre European Union-backed pipeline, which
could cost 7.9 billion euros ($9.71 billion), is designed to bring gas from
Central Asia and Azerbaijan to the EU to diversify the bloc's gas sources away
from Russia.
Nabucco shareholders have struggled to secure the gas supply
deals they need to secure financing for around 70 percent of the project costs,
with RWE having to push back signing a deal with Turkmenistan until the second
half of the year.
"I am confident that they can make the gas deals this
year or early next year in order to secure the investment," Nabucco
Managing Director Reinhard Mitschek said, adding there were no firm financial commitments
for the project so far but that talks with banks were ongoing.
"We are on track. We expect to finalise all our
important pre-requisites in the development phase just in time for the
construction start up in the second half of 2011," he said, adding that
first gas would likely flow across south-eastern Europe to Austria at the end
of 2014.
A lull in European energy demand and a surge in liquefied
natural gas supply has driven gas prices down across the region over the last
year and led some analysts to question the need for another supply line.
But the pipeline consortium of Germany's RWE, Austria's OMV
, Hungary's MOL, Bulgarian Energy Holding, Transgaz of Romania and Botas of
Turkey can expect higher sales prices and healthy demand for the gas Nabucco
transports when it opens and it would be a mistake to delay it because of the
current glut, Mitschek said.
"To slow down or lean back would be absolutely the
wrong measure," he said when asked if the dip in demand seen in Europe
might slow the project.
"We cannot fine tune a long-term project on short-term
market developments. In the long run, we expect reasonable prices both for gas,
the commodity itself, and also for the transportation services."
Nabucco - which will cross Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and
Hungary on its way to Austria -- is expected to carry 31 billion cubic metres a
year (bcm) but will start with a capacity of 8 to 10 bcm a year and build
additional compressor stations over the following four years.