EU Energy Chief Committed to Opening Southern Corridor

By Nicole Lundeen

VIENNA--Europe remains committed to plans to build a pipeline to bring natural gas from the Caspian Sea region to Europe, European Union energy chief Guenther Oettinger said Monday.

Mr. Oettinger spoke at a press conference ahead of a meeting in Vienna today of representatives from the Azerbaijan gas consortium, Shah Deniz II, and the Nabucco West pipeline consortium.

That pipeline would bring natural gas from the Caspian Sea region via Austria. An alternative route for the so-called southern corridor would be to run the pipeline through Italy.

"We are very determined that the corridor will be opened," the EU energy commissioner said.

He said that both pipeline concepts were good and that no matter which proposal succeeds, the pipeline will be European.

The EU currently gets about a quarter of its natural gas from Russia, mostly through pipelines in Ukraine. In January 2009, Russia cut off supplies through Ukraine in a dispute over the terms of a new supply and transit contract. The disruption left millions of European households without heat during 13 days of bitter cold and forced thousands of schools and factories to close. It was not the first time Russia had left Europeans stranded and it renewed the EU's determination to open up a southern corridor.

The energy chief suggested he was optimistic about Nabucco's chances, noting that the proposal had made it to the final rounds.

Austrian oil and gas company OMV AG's (OMV.VI) chief executive officer Gerhard Roiss said that the Nabucco consortium, which includes OMV, remained open for more participants. He repeated earlier comments that there were no indications that the Hungarian partner MOL Nyrt. (MOL.BU) would withdraw from the Nabucco consortium.

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