Azernews.Az

TANAP and Nabucco West pipelines are perfectly fit for the realization of the Southern Gas Corridor, Austrian energy group OMV`s Caspian regional manager Wolfgang Sporrer said in Baku last week.

``Nabucco West is an economically viable project to open the Southern Gas Corridor with the Shah Deniz II gas,`` Sporrer told an international oil and gas conference. He was referring to the second phase of developing Azerbaijan`s Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea, which is expected to start by the end of 2017.

Sporrer said that OMV, which is one of Nabucco consortium shareholders, believes that Nabucco West is the project that could meet EU`s all main energy targets.

According to him, security of supplies and diversification issues are very high on the EU`s agenda.

Sporrer stressed that the requirements for the Southern Gas Corridor should be adapted to new realities, and the project implemented within the Southern Gas Corridor should be swift, strategic, flexible in markets and flexible in capacity. According to Sporrer, only Nabucco West, which is a shorter version of the original Nabucco project, is able to meet all these requirements.

``Nabucco West is swift, has fully harmonized regulatory legal framework inherited from Nabucco base case. Project support agreements have been concluded in all countries,`` Sporrer said. ``We are ready to start construction as soon as the Shah Deniz consortium decision is in place.``

``We believe that Nabucco West finally brings together strategic interests of shareholders, European consumers and interests of producers,`` Sporrer added.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU, designed to diversify the routes and sources of supply and thus increase European energy security.

Nabucco is one of the Southern Gas Corridor projects, which aims to transport gas from the Caspian region and Middle East to European countries. Gas to be produced during Shah Deniz 2 project is considered as the main source for the project.

Besides OMV, the current shareholders of the Nabucco project are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, German RWE and Hungary`s FGSZ.