Austria, Azerbaijan Sign Memo of Understanding on Nabucco Pipeline Participation

Excerpt from report by Austrian newspaper Der Standard on 22 September

Baku – The OMV [Austrian Petroleum Corporation], the driving force behind the Nabucco project of a natural gas pipeline from the Caspian area to Austria, wants to use a new tactic to bring new dynamism to the undertaking, which had been stalling most recently. So that Azerbaijan finally agrees to a contract on long-term gas supplies to Europe, Socar, Azerbaijan’s state-owned gas company, is to get up to 10 per cent of the shares in Nabucco’s operating company.

Additional weight is given to this intention by a memorandum of understanding, which Economics Minister Martin Bartenstein and his Azerbaijani counterpart Energy Minister Natiq Aliyev signed in Baku. At the conclusion of a business mission to central Asia and Azerbaijan, Bartenstein was also promised in Baku the intensification of economic cooperation during talks with high- ranking government representatives. [passage omitted]

Energy Minister Aliyev stressed Azerbaijan’s interest in delivering more natural gas to western Europe and in strengthening its role as a transit country. [passage omitted]

Originally published by Der Standard, Vienna, in German 22 Sep 07.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring European. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.