RWE pulls out of Nabucco project, sells its 17% stake to OMV
FRANKFURT. April 15 (Interfax) - German concern RWE AG has decided to back out of the Nabucco project, which entails the construction of a gas pipeline from Azerbaijan to Western Europe, by selling its nearly 17% stake to its Austrian partner in the consortium, the newspaper Deutsche Welle reported.
Austrian power company OMV bought the German company's 16.67% stake for an undisclosed sum. On Sunday, RWE and OMV both said that OMV had purchased RWE's share in the Nabucco pipeline, without naming a price. According to RWE, the deal was sealed on March 1, the publication reported.
As a result, OMV doubled its stake in the project to 33.34%.
RWE and OMV had been negotiating on this transfer since last December. RWE said it was ready to withdraw from the project due to the changing conditions. The pipeline was originally supposed to be 4,000 kilometers long, but its length was later slashed to 1,300 km. Furthermore, the timeframe for construction was longer than originally anticipated.
In addition, according to press agency DPA, RWE was experiencing difficulties relating to Germany's changing nuclear energy policy, and it intended to save money by withdrawing from Nabucco.
Besides OMV, Hungarian company MOL, Turkish company Botas, Bulgarian company BEH and Romanian company Transgaz are still parties to the project. However, spokesmen for the Austrian concern noted that the final shareholder structure might still undergo alterations.
For example, in April 2012 MOL announced its readiness to pull out of the project in case of necessity, noting that "there are many uncertainties surrounding the Nabucco project, which are difficult to ignore."
In the next several months, a decision needs to be made on whether Azerbaijani gas will pass via Nabucco through the Balkans to Austria, or whether Europe will give priority to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which entails the construction of a shorter pipeline to Italy.
Earlier, Iraq and Turkmenistan were also considered as potential main gas suppliers for the project. Commercial gas supplies via Nabucco were planned to kick off in 2017, and the start of construction was scheduled for 2013. The project cost is estimated at 7.9 billion euro.
