Nabucco spokesman: The "open season" process, which involves putting the capacity of the Nabucco gas pipeline on sale, will not start until...

The ’open season’ process, which involves putting the capacity of the Nabucco gas pipeline on sale, will not start until the consortium receives a firm commitment from Azerbaijan that it will supply the project with gas, a Nabucco spokesman has told New Europe.

“Firm gas-supply commitments are indeed a precondition to start with the open season process,” Christian Dolezal said. “The Shah Deniz consortium received the proposal from us in time and we are waiting for their decision. After our shareholders have firm commitments from the Shah Deniz consortium we will, can start with the open season process,” he added.

The gas produced within the second phase of the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field is considered to be a gas source for the three competing Southern Gas Corridor projects, including Nabucco. Turkey has already secured around 6 billion cubic metres of gas of the around 16bn – 17bn cubic metres expected to come out of the second phase of Shah Deniz.


/APA/