Europe
remains committed to plans to
build a pipeline to bring gas from the
Caspian Sea
region to
Europe
, European Union energy chief Guenther Oettinger
said Monday.
Mr. Oettinger spoke at a press conference ahead of a meeting in
Vienna
today
of representatives from the
Azerbaijan
gas
consortium, Shah Deniz II, and the Nabucco West pipeline consortium.
The pipeline is one of two proposals for bringing natural gas from the
Caspian
Sea
region to
Europe
via
Austria
. The
second line would bring the gas via
Italy
, also
along a so-called southern corridor.
"We are very determined that the corridor will be opened," the EU
energy commissioner said.
He said that both pipeline concepts were good and that no matter which proposal
succeeds, the pipeline will be European.
The EU currently gets about a quarter of its natural gas from
Russia
,
mostly through pipelines in
Ukraine
. In
January 2009,
Russia
cut
off supplies through
Ukraine
in a
dispute over the terms of a new supply and transit contract. The disruption
left millions of European households without heat during 13 days of bitter cold
and forced thousands of schools and factories to close. It was not the first
time
Russia
left
Europeans stranded and it renewed the EU's determination to open up a southern
corridor.
The energy chief suggested he was optimistic about Nabucco's chances, noting
that the proposal had made it to the final rounds.
Austrian oil and gas company OMV AG's (OMV.VI) chief executive officer Gerhard
Roiss said that the Nabucco consortium, which includes OMV, remained open for
more participants. He repeated earlier comments that there were no indications
that the Hungarian partner MOL Nyrt. (MOL.BU) would withdraw from the Nabucco consortium.