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Saturday, 30 August, 2008, 12:00 GMT | more prices >>

Nabucco to sign up new partner



By Upstream staff 

The Nabucco consortium will hold a signing ceremony for the sixth partner to join the pipeline project tomorrow, with consortium officials refusing to confirm which company was joining, saying only that a representative from Germany would take part in the event.

Although the Nabucco consortium is keeping mum over the new partner, officials from some transit states have already said that German utility company RWE will join the €5 billion ($7.42 billion) project.

A spokesman for the Nabucco project declined to confirm the identity of the sixth partner.

According to the consortium, Viktor Eibling, representative for international energy policy, globalisation and sustainable development at the German Foreign Ministry, will attend the ceremony scheduled for 1600 GMT tomorrow.

The planned pipeline, designed to pump gas from the Caspian via Turkey and the Balkans to Austria through 3300 kilometres of pipeline, is a key plank in the European Union's plans to ease dependence on Russian gas.

Until now, the consortium has been equally owned by oil and gas companies in the transit countries - Austria's OMV, Hungary's MOL, Turkey's Botas, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz and Romania's Transgaz.

In an interview with daily Die Presse, the consortium's mnaging drector Reinhard Mitschek said that the group was in talks with a potential seventh partner.

The potential seventh partner ought to be active in gas exploration and production in Nabucco's sourcing region, yet would not necessarily have to be headquartered there, Mitschek was quoted as saying.

"The final composition of the shareholders should be finalised before the start of construction work," a Reuters report quoted as saying.

Construction is expected to start next year.


Monday, 04 February, 2008, 15:06 GMT  | last updated: Monday, 04 February, 2008, 15:09 GMT

Joining up: it is believed RWE is the mystery sixth member of the Nabucco consortium
 

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