Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The consortium of Nabucco West gas pipeline project is expected to sign a shareholder agreement in the coming days with the partners on the development of the giant Shah Deniz gas condensate field in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea, whose gas is considered as the main source for Nabucco West.

"The agreement will be signed very soon, in a couple of days," an official representative of the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH consortium told Azerbaijan's Trend news agency on Wednesday.

Nabucco West is a short-cut version of the Nabucco project, which envisages construction of a pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria.

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), a rival project, is also seeking transportation of Azerbaijani gas to European markets. It is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into Western Europe.

Managing Director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International Reinhard Mitschek said earlier that Nabucco West expects to finalize the Shareholder Agreement with the Shah Deniz partners in April.

The Shah Deniz consortium is considering both Nabucco West and TAP as options for gas export. A final decision on the pipeline route is due in June and a final investment decision by October 2013.

Earlier Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR's chief Rovnag Abdullayev said that at present, experts are evaluating the proposals.

"At present, work is underway to solve all problems by the time a final investment decision is made in late 2013," Abdullayev said.

Both Nabucco West and TAP projects are part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is one of the European Union's priority energy projects. The Southern Gas Corridor aims at diversifying the routes and sources of energy supply, thereby increasing secure delivery.

Strong shipper interest in Nabucco

Nabucco West has received strong interest from a variety of shippers following the launch of the open season registration phase, Nabucco Gas Pipeline International said on May 16.

"A week after the launch of the registration phase of the Open Season, shipper interest in registration and capacity booking in the Nabucco West pipeline has already exceeded expectations," the company said.

According to Reinhard Mitschek, 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."

In early May Nabucco Gas Pipeline International announced the launch of an open season process for capacity booking in the gas pipeline.

The first phase of the Open Season process offers potential shippers the possibility to register their interest in booking capacity and to request access to the Open Season documents, after which they can provide non-binding capacity bookings.

The Open Season documents include the details of the Open Season process, the form of a gas transportation agreement, setting out the terms and conditions proposed by the transporter for transportation services through the Nabucco pipeline.

Extension of Nabucco exemption

Recently, the national regulators of Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria confirmed the extension of the 50 percent exemption from the EU legislation on third party access granted to the Nabucco gas pipeline via a draft decision. The prolongation is aligned with the expectations of the delivery timelines for gas from the Shah Deniz field.

The four national regulators also reiterated their support for the Nabucco legal and regulatory framework, consisting of the Nabucco Intergovernmental Agreement, the Project Support Agreements and the Exemptions. Exemption from current EU legislation, which stipulates that 100 percent network access has to be made available to companies not directly involved, can only be granted in the case of major cross-border projects.