Dinu Patriciu, president of the Rompetrol oil group, declared on Wednesday that Nabucco is an utopist project of the modern world, with Russia having the first chance of developing their Blue Stream II project.

In Patriciu's opinion, in case BlueStream II is built, Romania will be completely dependent on the Russian gas. The only solution seen by Patriciu is to open for privatization the national gas resources.

According to a recent interview offered by Patriciu, Romania should be the keeper of the gas provisions towards Europe, by using the existing exploitation and storage facilities, currently owned by the Romanian state, through Romgaz.

"We might have a gas storage capacity of some 20 billion cubic meters. Romgaz is a socialist giant left alive, its licenses must enter the privatization process", says Patriciu.

Supported by the European Union, the Nabucco gas pipeline could allow Romania and other European countries to buy natural gas from Iran and Turkmenistan, via Turkey - Bulgaria - Romania - Hungary - Austria.

Nabucco might supply some 25 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.