Launch of Nabucco Pipeline Open Season Process announced
By Aynur Jafarova
The Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH has announced the launch of the Open Season process for capacity booking in the Nabucco pipeline.
The consortium reported on Monday that the first phase of the Open Season process offers potential shippers the possibility to register their interest in booking capacity in the pipeline and to request access to the Open Season documents, following which they can provide non-binding capacity bookings.
The Open Season documents include the details of the Open Season process, the form of gas transportation agreement and the related network code, setting out the terms and conditions proposed by the transporter for transportation services through the Nabucco pipeline.
Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH CEO Reinhard Mitschek said once constructed, the Nabucco pipeline will offer producers and shippers access to the growing markets of South Eastern and Central Europe, as well as augmenting their access to the Central European Gas Hub at Baumgarten.
"The Open Season process will be conducted according to the principles of open access and supply diversification," Mitschek said.
In turn, Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH CFO Frank Siebert said the proposals laid out by the company are highly competitive, and commercially attractive.
"The Open Season process will adhere to the highest standards of transparency whilst at the same time ensuring that information exchanged with potential shippers during the process is treated in confidence," Siebert mentioned.
The first phase of the Open Season process is envisaged to be concluded by the end of the second quarter of 2013. Following the successful conclusion of this phase, shippers will be invited to submit binding bids. The initiation of the binding bid phase is foreseen to take place in the third quarter of 2013.
The Nabucco West and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) projects are part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is one of the European Union's priority energy projects. The Southern Gas Corridor aims at diversifying the routes and sources of energy supply, thereby increasing secure delivery.
The Shah Deniz consortium is considering both TAP and Nabucco West. The consortium will make its final decision on the pipeline route in June and a final investment decision by October 2013.
Nabucco West is a short-cut version of the Nabucco project, which envisages construction of a pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria.
The TAP project is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into Western Europe. Gas to be produced within the second phase of Shah Deniz gas condensate field development is considered as the main source for TAP. Its initial capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, but it is easily expandable to 20 billion cubic meters.