The European Union's top energy official said Monday he expects there will be "irreversible decisions" within the next few months that will open the southern corridor to deliver natural gas from the Caspian region to central Europe.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an energy conference Guenther Oettinger also said that the EU doesn't have any preference of which pipeline should be built to ship Caspian gas to Europe .

"Everything speaks for a direct link between [ Azerbaijan 's capital] Baku and Europe ...and I believe there will be irreversible decisions to this end within the next two to three months," EU energy commissioner Oettinger said.

"The project southern corridor will certainly become a success in 2012," Oettinger added.

Opening the southern corridor has long been a Brussels priority to reduce Europe 's dependence on Russian gas.

The final decision on which pipeline will eventually transport Caspian gas to Europe is first and foremost one that the Shah Deniz II consortium will have to make, Oettinger said.

The Shah Deniz II consortium--which includes BP PLC (BP) and Azerbaijan's state-owned gas company Socar--is developing a giant gas field offshore Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea coast. That gas field is expected to become the primary source of gas for any European-backed pipeline.

Europe supports several alternative projects, including the Nabucco, the interconnector Turkey , Greece , Italy , or ITGI, and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, known as TAP, Oettinger said.

"I could live with any [of these pipelines]," he said.

However, he added that the Nabucco pipeline project--in which Germany's RWE AG (RWE.XE) and Austria's OMV AG (OMV.VI) own stakes--is the most ambitious project given that it is the largest proposed southern corridor pipeline with around 30 billion cubic meters of annual transport capacity.

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