Abu Dhabi Considers Investment in Nabucco

Abu Dhabi's investment fund International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), is considering taking a stake in the planned Nabucco pipeline.

IPIC, which owns a stake of Nabucco leader, Austrian oil and gas group OMV, is interested in becoming Nabucco's seventh shareholder, Austrian paper Salzburger Nachrichten reported, without saying where it got the information.

OMV declined to comment on the report, but added that Nabucco was in principle open for new shareholders.

OMV executive Werner Auli recently stated that the final investment decision for the pipeline will be made in the first quarter of next year at the latest.

Nabucco is a proposed 3,300 kilometers (2,050 mi) long pipeline designed to carry Caspian and Central Asian natural gas from Erzurum in Turkey via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to a major natural gas hub in Austria.

The pipeline is expected to carry 31 billion cubic meters a year (bcm), starting with a capacity of 8 to 10 bcm/year, with output of about 15 billion cubic metres of gas by the end of 2014.

In addition to OMV, Nabucco's other shareholders include Hungary's MOL , Romania's Transgaz, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz, Turkey's Botas and Germany's RWE