The future of the Nabucco pipeline project is still not assured, an executive of Austrian energy giant OMV has told a conference on Wednesday.

Between July and October 2010, an open season bidding process for capacity will be held. The future of the project will then be assessed against the resulting forecast demands.

"We will start the open season process this year, then we will get enough demand or not," Werner Auli, OMV's head of oil and gas, told a conference, adding that he was optimistic about the level of demand.

However, pointing out that he represented a commercial organization, and not an institution, said the decision would be made on pragmatic business terms.

If the demand turned out not to be sufficient, the project would be terminated, he said. "If not, Nabucco will not be built, this is very simple. We are a commercial company, we are not an institution. If the demand is not there, we will not build the pipeline," he stated.

Besides OMV, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz, Turkey's Botas, Germany's RWE, Hungary's MOL and Romania's Transgaz are all partners in the EU-backed project, which would reduce European reliance on Russian gas supplies.

The pipeline, skirting around Russian soil, would bring gas from the Middle East and the Caspian region to Europe.

Russian gas pipeline export monopoly Gazprom also has a rival project, South Stream, with several international cooperation memoranda having already been signed.

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