March 27 (SeeNews) - The countries involved in the EU-backed Nabucco gas pipeline project 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.
The shareholders have to sign an intergovernmental agreement with Turkey to synchronise legal frameworks as Turkey is not member of the European Union.
"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 pipeline will initially operate at a capacity of 10-12 billion cubic metres and its capacity will be increased stepwise based on the market needs, he added.
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.
The Caspian, Middle East and Central Asian regions expected to feed the pipeline have proven combined gas reserves of 82,000 billion cubic metres. Potential suppliers are Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Egypt, Mitschek said.
"You can imagine that not only Nabucco but also other pipeline projects and LNG projects can be realised on the basis of such huge gas reserves."
Nabucco, through which Europe is trying to balance Russia's position of a dominant gas supplier to the continent, 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.
"Russia will remain, if we compare single countries as gas producers and suppliers, the biggest gas supplier to Europe also in the future - there is no doubt," Mitschek said.
Nabucco is seen as a rival to the South Stream gas pipeline, a joint project of Russia's Gazprom and Italy's ENI, designed to carry 30 billion cubic metres of Russian gas yearly to Austria and Italy under the Black Sea and via Bulgarian territory.