Romania Ready To Support Nabucco, South Stream Projs – Fin Min

"Romania is ready to support any EU undertaken project, both Nabucco and South Stream," Vosganian said, in a press conference organised by Romanian state-owned gas pipeline operator Transgaz.

Vosganian’s statement is the first one of a state official claiming Romania is interested in South Stream, a project of Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom, which analysts see as a direct competitor for Nabucco.

EU supports Nabucco project to reduce its dependence on gas imports from Russia.

Romanian president Traian Basescu stressed Wednesday upon the speeding up of Nabucco pipeline project.

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

The pipeline is a project of a consortium lead by Austria’s OMV and is expected to become operational by 2011-2012, after investments estimated at EUR7.9 billion.

The six companies in the consortium are Austria’s OMV AG (OMV.VI), Hungary’s MOL Nyrt. (MOL.BU), Romania’s Transgaz (TGN.RO), Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz, Turkish BOTAS and Germany’s RWE AG (RWEOY).

South Stream is a project estimated at EUR10 billion, led by Russian Gazprom and Italy’s ENI, aiming to construct a gas pipe for the delivery of Russian natural gas towards Europe.

Gazprom has already inked deals with Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Hungary for the development of the South Stream project. Slovenia and Austria might as well participate in the project.

Analysts say that South Stream, with an annual gas transport capacity of 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas, is a modality to increase Russia’s domination over the gas deliveries towards Europe.