Azerbaijan can supply around 7 billion cubic meters of natural gas to be transported through Nabucco, when and if the pipeline becomes operational, an official of the Azeri state oil company Socar told the Black Sea Energy and Economic Forum in Bucharest, news agency Mediafax reported.
Socar's Deputy Vice President Vitaliy Baylarbayov said Friday the company hasn't signed an agreement with the Nabucco consortium, but it has the capacity to deliver around 7 billion bcm a year, or around a quarter of the pipeline's annual initial capacity.
Thursday, the Romanian Economy Ministry’s state secretary Tudor Serban said Romania was offered the option to receive 7.3 bcm gas through Nabucco project, declining to name the country that forwarded the offer. People from the ministry told Mediafax earlier Friday that Azerbaijan is the respective country.
Serban also said the offer is premised by Nabucco pipeline being up and running before the rival South Stream project.
South Stream is also an important project, but Nabucco is one of the largest, Baylarbayov said Friday.
The Nabucco pipeline, the construction of which will need investments of EUR8 billion, will deliver approximately 31 billion cubic meters of gas annually from the Caspian Sea to Central Europe through Turkey and Romania, bypassing Russia. It is due for completion in 2014 or 2015.
Meanwhile, the Russian authorities plan to accelerate the development of the South Stream pipeline, which is seen delivering 31 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year starting 2015.
Baylarbayov also said Socar is interested in any project aiming to deliver oil and gas to European consumers, including the Pan-European Oil Pipeline, which aims to deliver crude oil from the Caspian region, through the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta, to Trieste in Italy.