Nabucco Gas Pipeline Project Says Has Submitted Transit Offer To Shah Deniz II

Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH--the European consortium that plans to build a natural gas pipeline to connect the Caspian region with central Europe--said Saturday it has made an offer to transport gas from Azerbaijan.

In a written statement, Nabucco said it has made "a comprehensive [gas] transportation offer" to the Shah Deniz II consortium, which develops a giant gas field off Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea coast.

"We are convinced that Nabucco offers the best path of transport for the export of natural gas from Azerbaijan and other countries," said the company in a written statement.

The Nabucco consortium includes German utility RWE AG (RWE.XE), Austria's OMV AG (OMV.VI), Hungary's MOL Nyrt (MOL.BU) and three other shareholders, each of which owns approximately 16.7%. Oct. 1 is the deadline for interested projects to make an offer to transport the first sizeable volumes of Caspian natural gas expected to reach Europe in the next decade.

The consortium of companies--that includes energy giants such as BP PLC (BP, BP.LN)--developing the Shah Deniz II gas field offshore Azerbaijan is expected to pick a winner by the end of the year.

A person familiar with the matter late Friday told Dow Jones Newswires that a competing pipeline project--ITGI, which is sponsored by Italy's energy company Edison SpA (EDN.MI) and Greece's DEPA--also submitted an offer. A third gas pipeline project--the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, which includes German utility E.ON AG (EOAN.XE)--said Friday that it is ready to submit an offer to the Shah Deniz II group of companies.

-By Jan Hromadko, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]