Russia's Gazprom aims to weaken Nabucco by luring German utility RWE into joining its South Stream gas pipeline project, Russian Kommersant newspaper reported.

“The more participants in the Russian project, the weaker the rival – this is Moscow's slogan,” the newspaper says in an article, entitled “South Stream Swallows Nabucco from the Inside”.

The article comes days after German daily Handelsblatt reported that Russia's Gazprom has offered German utility RWE to join its South Stream gas pipeline project.

The Moscow-based newspaper comments that the European Union is still blind to the risk of the collapse of the project, but this may easily prove to be the first step in uniting the two projects.

Kommersant points out that the German utiliy RWE is an important player in the Nabucco project, since it will be one of the major consumers of gas from the pipeline.

According to East European Gas Analysis analyst Mihail Korchemkin Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sensed that Nabucco is gathering momentum and is now trying to put a spoke in its wheel.

Other analysts comment that should RWE decide to abandon Nabucco and join the South Stream project, this could spell the end of Nabucco.

South Stream is a joint venture of Russia's Gazprom and Italy's Eni. It will exit Russia under the Black Sea and enter the European Union via Bulgaria to carry 63 billion cubic meters of gas a year.

The gas line is scheduled to be completed by 2015. With it Russia aims at eliminating dependence from transit countries.

Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Croatia are also signed onto the deal.

Nabucco pipeline aims to provide a supply of gas not subject to Russian control. Current partners in Nabucco are Bulgarian Energy holding, Turkey's Botas, Hungary's MOL, Austria's OMV, Romania's Transgaz and Germany's RWE, each holding 16.67%.

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