OMV CEO Expects Nabucco Suppliers To Take Stakes In Pipeline - Report

The chief executive of Austrian oil and gas producer OMV AG (OMV.VI) expects that key suppliers of its planned Nabucco gas pipeline will take stakes in the showcase project that is slated to ship natural gas from the Caspian region to central Europe, newspaper Der Standard reports ahead of publication Friday.

"I expect that the suppliers will get stakes" in Nabucco, the newspaper quotes Gerhard Roiss as saying in an interview.

Roiss added that the Shah Deniz 2 consortium--a group of European gas majors such as BP PLC (BP) and Norway's Statoil ASA (STO) as well as Azerbaijan's state-run Socar, that develop a giant offshore gas field which is likely the initial source of gas for the Nabucco project--has expressed interest in participating in the planned pipeline.

"The Shah Deniz consortium has express interest and is invited [to participate in Nabucco]," Roiss is quoted as saying.

"We know have one year to finalize this," Roiss added.

Last month, the Shah Deniz consortium selected Nabucco as one of the two final options to be considered when the consortium decides on a route to pipe Caspian gas to Europe next year.

Apart from OMV, the Nabucco consortium includes other European energy and utility companies, including Germany's RWE AG (RWE.XE) and Hungary's MOL Nyrt. (MOL.BU).

Newspaper website: www.derstandard.at

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