Shareholders in Nabucco Gas Pipeline in Talks with EBRD, EIB on 1.5 Bln Euro Loan – Media

"Nabucco's shareholders mull borrowing 1.0 billion euro from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and another 450 million euro from the European Investment Bank," Mediafax (www.mediafax.ro) quoted the head of the engineering and research department at Romanian state-owned gas transmission company Transgaz, Vlad Pavlovschi, as saying.

He added that a total 5.6 billion euro loan is needed for the construction stage of the project and the shareholders have also started talks with credit insurers Coface and Hermes.

The project will generate competitive prices to import gas in Romania and will lead to investments of over 1.0 billion euro in the natural gas sector, Pavlovschi said.

Transgaz is a shareholders in the consortium that will build and operate the 3,300-kilometre pipeline together with Austria's OMV, Germany's RWE, Hungary's MOL, Turkey's Botas and Bulgaria's Bulgargaz. The 7.9 billion euro pipeline is designed to carry 31 billion cubic metres of Caspian gas to Europe, bypassing the tanker-clogged Bosphorus Straits. First deliveries are expected in 2014 or 2015.

($=0.6702 euro)