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Romgaz to reserve transport capacities in Nabucco pipeline, instead of Transgaz

Gas producer Romgaz will represent Romania in the tendering for reserving the gas transport capacity through the Nabucco pipeline, as Transgaz, the partner of the consortium that will make the gas pipeline, cannot sell the gas, said on Wednesday Transgaz design and research director, Vlad Pavlovschi, within the Central European Gas Conference.

'We signed three months ago a memorandum with Romgaz to which we ceded the rights reserved to Transgaz in the transport capacity of the Nabucco pipeline, since Transgaz does not have the right to sell gases', said the Transgaz official. He said that since the shareholders of the Nabucco consortium benefit from half of the pipeline's capacity Romgaz would be entitled to reserve a capacity of some 2bn cubic meters of gas. According to him, the open-season procedure - namely the bidding of the transport capacity in Nabucco, may start in September and will have two phases: the first one for the shareholders and the second one, for other relevant companies. Asked whether Romgaz has already signed contracts for the capacity it is entitled to, Pavlovshi said such contracts to participate in the open-season tendering are not necessary. 'None of the companies in the consortium has contracts signed for the gas that will be transported through Nabucco, but there are advanced discussions', said the Transgaz official. The head of the Department of Projects for International Pipelines in OMV Gas International, Johann Gallistl, present in Bucharest in Central European Gas Conference, said on Wednesday half of the capacity of Nabucco pipeline will go to the companies in the consortium that will make the pipeline, whereas the rest of the capacity will be used by other companies. Moreover, 10% of the final capacity of the pipeline will be reserved to the short term contracts, since the reservation of the entire capacity of the long-term contracts would mean that, at a given time, the maximum capacity could be exceeded, said the OMV official. According to him, at present, the consortium that will make the project is awaiting all okays from the European Commission to move to the next stages. 'We estimate we will receive all these approvals in the next months. In parallel, we have started a market research procedure that will be finalized at the end of the next week. This operation will give us concrete data on the entry and exit points of the gas volumes and about the countries that will ensure the gas quantities, necessary data for preparing the start of the open-season procedure through which the relevant companies will voice their interest in using this pipeline, said the official of the Austrian company. He mentioned that, after the open-season procedure, an intergovernmental accord would be signed, than the engineering project and the receiving of environmental approvals. The year 2008 is decisive for making the project. All these phases have the role to prepare the project for the investment decision, which will be taken in early 2009. The building of the pipeline is estimated to start in 2010, and the first gas delivery is expected in 2013, the OMV official added. He said the European Union had already discussed with countries such as Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Kazakhstan so that they become gas suppliers for Europe through Nabucco. The Rusian gas is no necessity for Nabucco, but it could be an option, mentioned the OMV representative. Nabucco is a project approved by the EU and aimed at making a pipeline to transport natural from Caspian Sea area to Europe through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. The pipeline will be 3,300 km-long and will transport some 31bn cubic meters of gas annually. The representatives of the 5 companies of the Nabucco consortium - OMV (Austria), Botas (Turkey), Mol (Hungary), Transgaz (Romania) and Bulgargaz (Bulgaria) and RWE (Germany) signed, at the start of February, in Vienna, the contract on co-opting the German company as the 6th partner in the project. Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: official signed companies contracts project consortium through nabucco transport pipeline transgaz capacity romgaz