Azernews.Az

Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH -- the European consortium that plans to build a natural gas pipeline to connect the Caspian region with central Europe -- said last Saturday it has made an offer to transport gas from Azerbaijan.

In a statement, Nabucco said it has made "a comprehensive [gas] transportation offer" to the Shahdaniz II consortium, which develops a giant gas field off Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea coast.

"We are convinced that Nabucco offers the best path of transport for the export of natural gas from Azerbaijan and other countries," the company said in the written statement.

The Nabucco consortium includes German utility RWE AG, Austria's OMV AG, Hungary's MOL Nyrt and three other shareholders, each of which owns approximately 16.7%. October 1 is the deadline for interested projects to make an offer to transport the first sizeable volumes of Caspian natural gas expected to reach Europe in the next decade.

Competing pipeline projects -- ITGI, which is sponsored by Italy's energy company Edison SpA and Greece's DEPA, and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, which includes German utility E.ON AG -- also submitted offers to the Shahdaniz II group of companies.

The Shahdaniz II consortium -- that includes BP and Azerbaijani state oil firm Socar -- will review proposals submitted in accordance with previously announced criteria, including commercial attractiveness, technical and financial viability, engineering and design work, management, transparency and the possibility of a phased scale-up, Socar said on Monday.

The consortium developing the Shahdaniz II gas field offshore Azerbaijan is expected to pick a winner by the end of the year.

On September 26, BP said it may consider a fourth possible route - the South-East Europe Pipeline (SEEP) stretching from Turkey to the Romanian-Hungarian border, in addition to the European Union-backed Nabucco link and two smaller projects that are vying for Shahdaniz gas.

Meanwhile, Germany's Bayerngas intends to join the Nabucco consortium as a seventh member, boosting the project's competitiveness, the group said last Friday.

"Nabucco Gas Pipeline International welcomes Bayerngas' intent on becoming one of the Nabucco shareholders," the consortium said in a statement.

"Negotiations with the six current shareholders will begin immediately to determine the future share split within the consortium," it added.

Bayerngas is a gas transport and distribution company based in Bavarian state capital Munich.

"We wholeheartedly welcome the Bavarian move ... Germany's gas demand will rise not least because of its nuclear energy exit decision and due to falling gas production in Europe," Gerhard Roiss, chief executive of Austrian energy company OMV , said in a statement.

The partners in Shahdaniz II gas field -- Norway's Statoil, Socar and BP -- are said to have grown frustrated, however, that so far there are no absolute guarantees from transporters that they can fulfil gas purchase obligations they take on.