Azerbaijan – a country that was supposed to be a key backer of Nabucco West project – said it had selected the alternative route for its gas - running through Greece and Albania. Experts say this could mean end for the EU-backed gas pipeline project.

Azerbaijan said it would deliver its gas to Europe through the

 Greece-Albania-Italy Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, or TAP. That’s instead of the initially-planned Nabucco West venture - a truncated version of the Nabucco pipeline system, which would run across Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to Western Europe.

Among the TAP consortium members are Norway's Statoil, Axpo of Switzerland and the German firm E.ON.

“The Nabucco West project was not selected by the consortium. While OMV accepts the decision of the consortium, OMV is of the opinion that the offer ... met all the selection criteria and was highly competitive,” Austrian power utility OMV, which is backing Nabucco, said in a company statement. 

 Azerbaijan’s withdrawal could in fact mean the end of Nabucco, as BFM.ru quotes Vyacheslav Mishchenko, development director at Argus Media. It’ll be almost impossible to find another gas supplier within the next couple of years.

“The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline is more attractive. Its length is just a bit above 500 km and Azerbaijan already has work experience in the South European market. After SOCAR [State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic] won the bid to buy Greek Depa, it may be seeing synergy between the two projects,” he said.

The Nabucco project has been facing problems almost from its very start in 2002. Under the initial plan, construction was set to get started in 2011 and be completed in 2014. However, the deadline has been extended several times, as the project has been struggling to secure gas suppliers.

In May, German RWE energy concern – one of Nabucco’s main ideologists and investors – withdrew from the project after Hungary’s largest oil and gas company, MOL, said it was stepping away from Nabucco.

The key aim behind the Nabucco project was to move away from dependence on Russia’s Gazprom for deliveries of Caspian gas to Europe. Under the initial game plan the pipeline was to cross Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania and end in Austria. However, after it became clear that the pipeline wouldn’t secure enough gas, it was cut almost by half to a Nabucco West version, running from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Baumgarten, Austria. 

Nabucco - West(Image from wikipedia.org)