Nabucco West offers 50% of consortium to Shah Deniz participants
MOSCOW. Jan 10 (Interfax) - The consortium involved in the building of a pipeline running from western Turkey to Europe - Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH (NIC) - has offered to sell the consortium involved in the production of Azerbaijani gas, Shah Deniz, 50% of the project.
An NIC statement says a document to this effect has been signed among the parties. The consortiums will jointly determine an estimated construction cost before the Shah Deniz consortium chooses between NIC and another pipeline option - TAP (Trans-Adriatic Pipeline) - that is, before this June 30. Accordingly, if Shah Deniz gives Nabucco West the nod, it will be offered 50% in the consortium.
The agreement is slated for final coordination and signing in Vienna in the near future. "The granting to Potential Investors of equity options of 50% to participate as shareholders in NIC following a positive pipeline selection decision by the Shah Deniz Consortium in favour of Nabucco West," NIC said in a statement.
The Nabucco consortium was set up by Austria's OMV, Hungary's MOL, Romania's Transgaz, Bulgaria's BEH, Turkey's Botas, and Germany's RWE in equal shares of 16.7%. In October, MOL lowered its stake to 14.67% and two months later RWE announced it was withdrawing from the project. Negotiations on the sale of its stake were held with OMV.
The Nabucco consortium had wanted to build the gas pipeline to Europe from several littoral Caspian states, but at this point only Azerbaijan and its Shah Deniz-2 deposit can be a source of gas for the pipeline.
The Shah Deniz consortium selected for itself the Trans-Anadolu Pipeline (TANAP) project, a pipeline from Azerbaijan to western Turkey, as an option for moving its own gas. Botas (20%) and State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) (80%) are the project members. Of the pipeline's overall 16-billion-cubic-meter throughput capacity, 6 billion cubic meters will be earmarked for Turkey and the rest for Europe.
The upshot was that the Nabucco consortium agreed to consider a truncated route - from western Turkey to Austria, and called it Nabucco West.
Nabucco West will be a competitor to the TAP project for the moving of Azerbaijani gas to Europe from Turkey's western border. Nabucco West wants to build a gas pipeline to Baumgarten, Austria, TAP to southern Italy.
The Shah Deniz project members are BP (operator, 25.5%), Statoil (25.5%), the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) (10%), Lukoil (10%), NICO (10%), Total (10%), and TPAO (9%).
The members of the TAP consortium are Switzerland's EGL (42.5%), Norway's Statoil (42.5%), and Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas (15% ).
