RWE: Nabucco Pipeline Will Begin Operations In 2014 As Planned

German utility company RWE AG (RWE.XE), a member of the Nabucco consortium, said Thursday the pipeline slated to transport natural gas from the Caspian region to Central Europe will begin operations in 2014, as planned.

"We expect to make a final investment decision over the course of 2010," said Michael Rosen, spokesman for RWE Supply & Trading. "Construction is expected to begin in 2011 and first gas will flow in 2014," he said.

Rosen added that the gas deliveries via Nabucco are expected to reach full capacity between the start of operations in 2014 and 2018.

His comments come in response to a report in Sueddeutsche Zeitung earlier Thursday that quotes European Commissioner Guenther Oettinger as saying that Nabucco will start operations in 2018 at the earliest.

Apart from RWE, the Nabucco consortium also includes Austria's OMV AG (OMV.VI) and Hungary's MOL Nyrt (MOL.BU), among others. The planned capacity for the pipeline is 31 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Company Web sites: www.rwe.xom; www.sueddeutsche.de

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