Nabucco West capacity to exceed 20 bcm – Mitschek
The capacity of Nabucco West pipeline will exceed 20 billion cubic meters per year, the Nabucco pipeline consortium`s chief was quoted as saying by Bulgarian media website Publics.bg.
``First, the consortium will make an open season for gas traders to book capacity in order to determine the intake and off-take points and then there will be a technical fine-tuning of the project, but its capacity will definitely be more than 20 bcm, even if the initial capacity is 10-16 bcm per year,`` Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH Managing Director Reinhard Mitschek said during a conference call last Wednesday.
According to Mitschek, the pipeline`s new capacity will mean lower investment costs and lower equity payments from shareholders, including Bulgarian Energy Holding.
Nabucco West is a short-cut version of the Nabucco project, which envisages construction of a pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. According to the original concept of the Nabucco project, a 3,900 km pipeline will be laid from the Georgian-Turkish and Iraqi-Turkish borders to the Austrian Baumgarten.
Mitschek believes that the consortium can secure financing from equity, international financial institutions such as European Investment Bank (EIB) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Energy Programme for Recovery (EEPR) and commercial banks.
Nabucco is one of the Southern Gas Corridor projects, designed to transport gas from the Caspian region and Middle East to European countries. Gas to be produced during the second phase of Azerbaijan`s Shah Deniz gas field development is considered as the main source for the project.
The project`s shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV, German RWE and Hungary`s FGSZ.
At present, the Shah Deniz consortium considers the options to export gas to central Europe, which include Nabucco base case, Nabucco West and South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP), proposed by BP. The pipeline route will be chosen by late June.
Mitschek is convinced that Nabucco West offers the best solutions.
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