The Nabucco project official representative, Christian Dolezal, said last week, “The investment costs of 7.9 billion euro are based on the feasibility study.”
But Dolezal told the Azerbai-jani Trend news agency the consortium is currently evaluating these costs.
Foreign media have cited a BP assessment that the pipeline may cost 14 billion euros ($19 billion). The cost would rise partly because of “soaring commodity prices.”
Earlier, Managing Director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International Reinhard Mitschek said the estimated costs of the pipeline are likely to be revised upwards to reflect increased length. Mitschek said Nabucco had decided to divert a planned stretch of the pipeline from the Islamic Republic to Iraq instead, and that will add a further 550 kilometers, meaning it will measure 3,900 kilometers in total.
The European Commis-sion’s energy spokesperson, Marlene Holzner, told Trend that even if the cost should jump, the European Commission will continue to support it, because its implementation will provide direct access to gas from the Caspian region.
Construction is scheduled to start in 2012 with the first supplies piped to Europe in 2015. The project’s participants include Austrian OMV, Hungarian MOL, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas and German RWE.