Nabucco Targets March for Gas Deals

The Nabucco pipeline consortium wants “concrete commitments” for natural gas deliveries from its suppliers by the end of March.

"We are in intensive discussions with all potential suppliers," Stefan Judisch, chief executive of Nabucco partner RWE Supply and Trading said in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper. "They need to tell us how much gas is available, and as of when."

Nabucco would transport up to 31 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Caspian and Middle Eastern gas to Europe bypassing Russia.  The project is a key element in the European Union’s plans to reduce energy dependence on Gazprom, the continent's main supplier.

Consortium members are in talks to secure gas from the Kurdish province in northern Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Judisch said the consortium wanted to reach agreement with all three countries by the end of March.

"Nabucco is all about diversity of supply," he said. "We now need to have concrete commitments of volumes this quarter. Then we can start the open season in the second half to start acquiring rights of way. We would start spending quite a lot of money."

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Energy Commissioner Guenter Oettinger recently visited Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to secure gas commitments from the region.

Read More at the Financial Times