Azerbaijan is mulling various natural gas export routes as it waits for European countries to decide on investment in the Nabucco pipeline to tap Caspian resources, according to its deputy foreign minister. Azerbaijan was expected to be the first supplier to Nabucco, planned to ship Caspian gas more than 3,300 kilometers (2,050 miles) from Turkey to Austria to cut Europe’s dependence on Russia.
The OMV AG-led project has been bogged down over financing, pricing and politics. The venture is vying with smaller projects such as the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy, or ITGI, led by Edison SpA and Greek natural gas company DEPA, and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG, or TAP, led by Statoil ASA and Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft Laufenburg AG.
“We would welcome Nabucco once Nabucco countries are ready to invest in building the pipeline,” Araz Azimov, Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister, said in an interview in Brussels. “We also have other options, like ITGI, like TAP and the relatively new project AGRI, which stands for Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and is based on the idea of supplies of liquefied natural gas.”