French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier met with Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul in October 2009 to discuss co-operation over the Nabucco pipeline. President Sarkozy told President Gul that French enterprises were hopeful to participate in the Nabucco project.
The Nabucco Pipeline is set to bring natural gas from the Caspian region, Middle East and Egypt to Central and Western European gas markets via Eastern Europe, reducing dependence on gas from Russia.
The pipeline will total approximately 3,300 km in length starting at the Turkish border of either Georgia or Iran, and lead to Baumgarten in Austria. Gas will then be further transported to Central and Western Europe through Austria.
Capacity of the €7.9 billion ($US11.26 billion) pipeline will reach a maximum of 31 Bcm/a of gas.
Article continues below…Front-end engineering and design (FEED) contracts for the project were awarded in May 2009 to five local engineering companies in Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Turkey, for work on the countries’ respective pipeline sections.
Nabucco project leader OMV has said that start of construction of the pipeline is planned for 2011 and gas is expected to start flowing through the Nabucco pipeline to Europe by 2014.
