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Nabucco Pipeline Users Entitled To 25-Yrs Exemptions

The gas beneficiary companies from Nabucco pipeline will be exempted from complying with the law on third party access to transport system or pricing methodology on a 25-year period, the National Energy Watchdog ANRE said Tuesday.
Nabucco Pipeline Users Entitled To 25-Yrs Exemptions
01 iul. 2008, 15:47, English

The exemption terms is subject to maximum 50% of the total annual capability technically available, or to 15 billion cubic meters per year utmost, ANRE said in a decision published in the Official Gazette.

The pricing methodology is to be enforced, equally and non-discriminatorily, to all users of Nabucco pipeline.

The exemption will come into force upon the European Commission approval and as soon as the first part of the pipeline becomes operational, the head of ANRE pricing and tariffs unit Gabriel Sarbu said.

"The project company (Nabucco International Company, or NIC, e.n) has already got this exemption from Austria and Hungary, and we are the third state to enforce the measure. We are to send the European Commission this week all documents for approval. The measure will come into force upon EC procedure approval," Sarbu also said.

The exemption is subject to some conditions, namely amending the pricing methodology in a 20-year period from the startup of the first part of Nabucco pipeline, and to some restrictions on preventing a certain stockholder from having a dominant position on the domestic market.

The exemption shall be annulled if the pipeline section to transit Romania is not rendered functional in five years from granting the exemption in the member-states or by December 31, 2014 utmost.

Nabucco pipeline will provide gas to European consumers from Iraq, Iran, Caspian Sea area, Middle East and Russia, NIC told ANRE.

Romania is entitled to transport 2 billion cubic meters of gas through Nabucco.

Nabucco pipeline project was initially aimed to supply natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Central Europe via Turkey and Romania, bypassing Russia.

The pipeline is owned by a consortium lead by Austria’s OMV and is expected to become operational by 2011-2012.

The companies in the consortium are entitled to reserve 50% of the gas transport capacity through Nabucco, that will be equally divided to the six companies in the consortium, namely Austria’s OMV AG (OMV.VI), Hungary’s MOL Nyrt. (MOL.BU), Romania’s Transgaz, Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz, Turkish BOTAS and Germany’s RWE AG (RWEOY), while the rest will be assigned by auction in September.