Nabucco pipeline joint venture formed

World Markets Analysis, June 30, 2005

Andrew Neff

The five partner companies in the 4.6-billion-euro (US$5.5-billion) Nabucco gas pipeline project yesterday committed to a joint venture (JV) to undertake the project. Austria’s OMV, Hungary’s MOL, Romania’s Transgaz, Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz, and Turkey’s BOTAS signed a JV agreement to build the pipeline, which is intended to run from Turkey through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to Baumgarten in eastern Austria by 2011. OMV, the lead partner in the project, has said that the Nabucco pipeline will be used to bring gas from Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Russia to European markets (see Austria: 30 May 2005: OMV Sketches Nabucco Pipeline, See Profits Surge).

Significance: The formation of the JV brings the pipeline proposal one step closer to fruition, with the consortium now taking on all the activities of a transmission system operator and beginning to draw up the plans to finance the pipeline’s construction and operation.

About these ads