Hungary's MOL Sees Stake in Nabucco Pipeline Drop

Hungary's MOL has not paid its quarterly contribution to Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH and has therefore lost its status as an equal partner in the consortium.

As a result, MOL's share in the pipeline company drops from 16.7% to 14.7%, according to reports of Budapest Times.

Meanwhile, the share of the other partners in the Nabucco Consortium, including the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), Turkeys' Botas, Romania's Transgaz, Germany's RWE, and Austria's OMV, increases from 14.7% to 16.7%.

The EU-backed Nabucco gas pipeline project is to ease Europe's energy dependence on Russia by carrying gas from Central Asia to Western Europe via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria.

The decision of the Hungarian energy company could hardly be considered a surprise.

In end-February, MOL Chief Executive Jozsef Molnar announced that no final investment decision could be reached on the Nabucco pipeline project before a definite source of gas supplies was found.

"For the time being, there is no obvious source of gas and there is also much uncertainty about the volume of the necessary investments. As such we can't even begin to discuss the project's returns," MOL's Chief Executive Jozsef Molnar said at a press conference, as cited by Dow Jones.

In end-June, the consortium developing the Shah Deniz 2 gas field in Azerbaijan announced that it had selected Nabucco West, the modified version of the original 4000-km gas pipeline scheme, for potential gas exports to Central Europe.

Prior to that, Russia showed interest in Shah Deniz Stage 2 gas for the South Stream gas pipeline project.

In end-April, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban suggested that MOL could withdraw from the gas pipeline project or seriously restrict its participation.