Nabucco can still be deemed a promising project

PanARMENIAN.Net - The European Union-backed plan to bring in up to 31 billion cubic meters of gas a year from the Caspian region has been plagued by delays and concerns about possible rising costs.

The Vienna-based pipeline consortium has estimated that Nabucco could cost around 7.9 billion euros ($10.9 billion) but has said this could change. It is scheduled to transport the first supplies in 2017 or 2018, Reuters reports. "Nabucco is not cheap, the cost factor is 10 billion euros or more," European Commissioner for Energy in the EC Günther Oettinger told an energy conference in Vienna.

Asked later whether this meant Nabucco was too expensive to build, Oettinger said he thought the project could still go ahead. "For a big project like Nabucco we need a European energy policy which enables investors to see that their investments make sense in the long term," Oettinger said.

According to him coordinated industry effort is a way to ensure that banks are willing to put money into Nabucco. "The debt crisis, which could develop into a financial market crisis or an economic crisis, is certainly no good sign," he said when asked if the state of the credit market could put financing for the project at risk.

"However, the project can still be assessed as being well-founded and it therefore can be made bankable," he added. Nabucco faces rivalry from Gazprom's South Stream gas project and is also competing with two smaller projects to carry gas supplies from Azerbaijan.