March 27 (SeeNews) - The countries involved in the EU-backed gas pipeline project Nabucco are expected to sign in June an agreement showing their political support for it, the managing director of the consortium implementing the project, Reinhard Mitschek, said on Friday.
"What's necessary now finally to reach successful investment, what we need is clear political support from all involved - from the involved states, from the governments, from the regulators, from the [European] Commission," Mitschek told a news conference in Sofia. "Now we need an intergovernmental agreement [...] We expect the signing of this intergovernmental agreement in June this year at the latest."
Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Romania and Turkey are shareholders in the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International consortium that will build the 7.9 billion euro ($10.6 billion) facility. Nabucco operators plan to build a 3,300 km pipeline to carry 31 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year.
"Today we are at the development phase of the project and we expect the final investment decision next year, in 2010, and to start construction in 2011 and the first gas transport will be handled in 2014," Mitschek said.
The Nabucco pipeline will start at the Georgian/Turkish and/or Iranian/Turkish border and will link the Caspian region, the Middle East and Egypt via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary with Austria and further west with Central and Western Europe.
Nabucco, through which Europe is trying to balance Russia's position of a dominant gas supplier to the region, has re-emerged as a project of strategic significance for Central and Eastern Europe after a price dispute between Moscow and Kiev left much of the region without Russian gas for two weeks earlier this year.