Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 7 /Trend A.Badalova/
Hungarian MOL Group's commitment to Nabucco gas pipeline remains unchanged despite transfer of its stake in the project's consortium to FGSZ Natural Gas Transmission Closed Company, a Nabucco official representative told Trend
"MOL Group's position and commitment toward the Nabucco project remained unchanged," Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH spokesman, Christian Dolezal wrote Trend in an e-mail on Tuesday.
Hungary's MOL Plc transferred its 16.67 percent stake in Nabucco International Consortium (NIC) to FGSZ Natural Gas Transmission Company, which is a 100 percent owned subsidiary of MOL Plc. The project's other partners include Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV and German RWE.
Dolezal stressed that FGSZ is in a great position to contribute to a great extent to the realization of the Nabucco project, which is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region and Middle East to the European countries.
"Nabucco is envisaged to be a midstream infrastructure asset and with this concept, the Nabucco pipeline will have similar operational and business characteristics like the Hungarian high-pressure gas transportation system owned and operated by FGSZ," he said.
FGSZ Ltd. is a dominant participant in the Hungarian domestic natural gas transmission sector. The company owns and operates the nearly 5560 km long high-pressure natural gas pipeline system covering the entire country. It is the sole holder of the transmission system operator license (TSO) with the exclusive responsibility for securing the harmonised operation of this system.
Nabucco gas pipeline is one of the Southern Gas Corridor projects. The construction of the pipeline with maximum capacity of 31 billion cubic meters is planned to start in 2013 and its first supplies are scheduled for 2017.
Gas produced during the second stage of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development is to be the main source for the Nabucco project.
