The Nabucco pipeline is a proposed natural gas pipeline that is planned to transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. Some consider the pipeline as a diversion from the current methods of importing natural gas solely from Russia. Construction of the 3,300-kilometer pipeline is expected to begin in 2008 and is planned to be finished until 2011. The construction work, estimated to cost 5 billion USD, is to be shared between the five gas companies in each of the countries. The company leading the project is OMV from Austria.

Once completed, it would allow transportation of natural gas from producers in the Middle East and Caspian region such as Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to Western Europe and to the countries along its path. The western end of the pipeline will be Baumgarten an der March, a major natural gas hub in Austria. The transport capacity of the pipeline will reach up to 30 billion cubic meters per year in the long term.

The Nabucco project is included in the EU Trans-European Energy Network program. ^*

External links

• News story on Energia.gr
• EU TEN-E document in PDF format (see pages 30--31).

Natural Gas Pipelines

Nabucco (Pipeline)