The Nabucco committee on Friday announced it would be submitting a binding bid to move the first 10 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan to Europe from the Shah Deniz II fields by the end of April.

The portion of the project expected to go forward is called Nabucco West, which plans to transport gas from the Shah Deniz fields in Azerbaijan from the Bulgarian-Turkish border to Austria through Romania and Hungary.

Construction of the 1,329 km Nabucco West pipeline will begin as soon as a final decision is reached on gas transportation. Construction is expected to take four to five years.

In June 2012, Nabucco West was selected by the Shah Deniz II consortium as the preferred Central European route to transport gas from the Shah Deniz gas field. A final route decision is expected in June 2013.

The Shah Deniz II consortium has said it would make its decision on whether to commission Nabucco West or competitor TAP (Trans Adriatic Pipeline) in June. The intention of both Nabucco West and TAP is to bypass Russia in transporting natural gas from Shah Deniz to Europe.

TAP is owned by Axpo (Switzerland), Statoil (Norway) and E.ON Ruhrgas (Germany). Its envisaged transport route is through Greece and Albania, crossing the Adriatic Sea to Italy.

The Shah Deniz field is operated by BP (Britain), Statoil (Norway), SOCAR (Azerbaijan), Total S.A (France), LukAgip (a joint company of Eni and LUKoil) (Italy and Russia), NIOC (Iran), and TPAO (Turkey). Together BP and Statoil own over 50 percent.

A competing project is South Stream, intended to transport Russian natural gas through the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary and eventually to Austria, possibly connecting Italy and Croatia. South Stream partners are Gazprom (Russia), Eni (Italy), Electricity de France (France), and Wintershall (Germany). Endit

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