Nabucco Chalks Up Big Interest from Shipping Companies

The Nabucco consortium says shipping-company interest in registration and capacity booking in the Nabucco West pipeline has already exceeded expectations just a fortnight after the launch of the registration phase of the Open Season.

Nabucco has attracted strong interest from a variety of shippers, including firms that are not part of Nabucco, the Shah Deniz consortium or its buyers.

"We are very pleased at the sustained interest in the Open Season from potential shippers. The high levels of interest clearly show the demand for the opening of the Southern Gas Corridor connecting European markets to Caspian gas, and also for Nabucco, as the flagship project of the Southern Gas Corridor," said Reinhard Mitschek, chief executive of the Nabucco company, in a statement.

The shareholders in the EU-backed Nabucco gas pipeline project are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Austria's OMV, Turkey's Botas, Romania's Transgaz and Hungary's FGSZ, a subsidiary of MOL.

A decision on whether Nabucco or the rival Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) gets the contract to pipe gas from the Shah Deniz II field offshore in Azerbaijan is expected by the end of June.