RWE, OMV Confirm Nabucco Stake Talks

Energy companies RWE and OMV have confirmed that they are in talks over RWE's 16.7% stake in the Nabucco gas pipeline project.

OMV remains committed to the the project, which is intended to transport gas from the Caspian Sea region to central Europe, the Vienna-based company's chief executive officer Gerhard Roiss said today at a press briefing in the Austrian capital.

"It is not an issue of control, it's an issue of investment," Roiss said, as cited by Bloomberg. "The shareholders of Nabucco at the end will be the ones who have the gas."

"We are in the process of discussing a transfer of our share with OMV," RWE spokeswoman Sabine Jeschke has told Bloomberg.

The project's current shareholders include the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV, German RWE, and Hungary's MOL, each of them controlling a 16.67 % stake.

The EU-backed Nabucco project is to carry Caspian natural gas to Europe by circumventing Russia.

In May 2012, the Nabucco Consortium presented the revised, smaller version of the gas pipeline project called Nabucco West.

The 1300-km pipeline Nabucco West is to carry Caspian gas from the Bulgarian-Turkish border to the Central European Gas Hub (CEGH) in Baumgarten and beyond.