Gazprom interested in joining Nabucco project

Marţi, 12 februarie 2008, 12:24 English | Regional Europe

Gazprom energy group is looking for alternative pipelines to use in order to transit its gas towards Europe, as relations with Ukrain worsen and it seeks to retain the one gas provider for Europe. Live at Eho Moskvi radio on Monday, Gazprom spokesperson Sergey Kuprianov implied that Gazprom might participate in the Nabucco project developed by several SE and Central European countries including Romania.

To dismiss such a project that would avoid Russia, Moscow has supported the version of an new alternative pipeline, Caspica which along other pipelines would claim most of Central-Asian natural gas, leaving Nabucco sourceless. In the same time, both Gazprom and the Italian company ENI decided to build an alternative pipeline to Nabucco, South Stream that would pass through the Black Sea.

But, according to Russian website Gazeta, Kuprianov has failed to recall that negotiations with Azerbaijan over gas supplies from a key deposit are not yet over. As Gazprom has yet to claim all Azeri gas, the group has only one chance of avoiding a strong competitor - and that would be to become a provider for Nabucco, according to the paper.