Details about negotiations to sell a recently-acquired stake in the Nabucco West gas pipeline project consortium could be made public within weeks, the head of the Austrian oil and gas group OMV AG (OMV.VI) said.
Details about negotiations to sell a recently-acquired stake in the
Nabucco West gas pipeline project consortium could be made public within weeks,
the head of the Austrian oil and gas group OMV AG (OMV.VI) said.
"It is true that we are negotiating with someone. I can't name any names,
but it might be announced in the coming weeks," Gerhard Roiss said in an
interview with Austrian daily Wirtschaftsblatt published Wednesday.
In April, OMV--one of the main shareholders of the proposed pipeline--bought a
17% share in the pipeline from German utilities company RWE AG (RWE.XE) for an
undisclosed sum and is now looking to sell it. Mr. Roiss had indicated in April
that possible new partners were interested in joining the consortium behind
Nabucco West.
Nabucco West is one of two remaining proposed pipelines in the running to bring
Caspian Sea
gas supplied by the Shah Deniz consortium to
Europe
,
helping to decrease the region's dependency on Russian gas. Should the final
decision fall in Nabucco West's favor, the pipeline's shareholder structure
will face another shake up because the Shah Deniz consortium has already announced
it will take at least a 50% stake in whichever pipeline is chosen in June.
Even if Nabucco West isn't chosen by Shah Deniz, Mr. Roiss said the project
wouldn't die because
Europe
needs this
"international highway" and there is enough gas for the pipeline. Mr.
Roiss didn't name potential suppliers, but last year OMV announced a
potentially significant gas discovery in the
Black
Sea
which could provide gas for Nabucco West.
Mr. Roiss also said OMV is aiming to raise 1 billion euros ($1.29 billion) in
divestments by the end of 2014. He confirmed his company's production target of
350,000 barrels per day by 2016 as "ambitious, but achievable." He
added its targets go "beyond 2016 and well beyond 350,000 [barrels per
day]" but didn't mention specific figures.
Commenting on OMV's ongoing negotiations with
Russia
's OAO
Gazprom (GAZP.RS) over gas prices, Mr. Roiss said the separation between
oil-indexed prices and hub prices is leading to a large negative margin which
isn't sustainable. He described this as a problem with the structure of the
European energy market.
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