European Commission Neutral on Pipelines
The European Commission does not favour any gas pipeline over another in opening up the Southern Gas Corridor, a spokesperson for EU Commissioner of Energy Guenther Oettinger has said.
Speaking to the Trend news agency at the weekend, Marlene Holzner said that the European Union did not support any one of the pipeline options and remained neutral in the matter.
"The Commission is neutral where the gas ends up in Europe, and it supports all pipelines in the EU, not only Nabucco but also TAP for example," she told the agency.
This is despite the EU's previous support of the Nabucco project which it openly had said was the optimal route through Europe.
"The Commission always said that Nabucco, benefiting from a robust Intergovernmental Agreement between all countries concerned is the pipeline that meets the EU's strategic interest in opening the Southern Corridor, namely creating the possibility to transport large volumes of gas through a dedicated infrastructure under a clear and transparent legal framework," Ms. Holzner told Trend.
Problems continue to cast the future of the Nabucco project in an uncertain light with routing and financing issues having rocked the project so far this year.
Last week, one of the six stakeholders in the pipeline MOL confirmed that it had lost confidence in the project and was no longer willing to continue to finance it past its existing contributions.
To emphasise this unwillingness, Chairman of MOL Zsolt Hernadi told a shareholders' meeting last Thursday that the company was considering withdrawing from the project.
"We have signalled that we are ready to sell our shares if necessary...,"he said. "We merely had to send a very very strong signal now that we are not willing to finance this any longer."
When asked by Trend about this latest issue, Ms. Holzner did not give an opinion.
"The Commission is not in the position to comment on commercial decisions taken by companies of a private undertaking and pipeline project [Nabucco]," she said.
MOL is one of the six shareholders in the Nabucco project, each holding a 16.67 per cent. OMV, Bulgarian Energy Holding, BOTAS, RWE and Transgaz hold the remaining stakes.