BUCHAREST (Romania), May 17 (SeeNews) - The project company of the Nabucco gas pipeline said it has submitted to Azerbaijani gas field consortium Shah Deniz II a modified concept for the pipeline project, cutting its length to 1,300 kilometres from 3,900 kilometres planned earlier.

Under the new concept, called Nabucco West, the pipeline will bring Caspian gas from the Bulgarian-Turkish border to Baumgarten in Austria, Nabucco Gas Pipeline International said in a statement on Wednesday.

Initially, the pipeline was to be built from the Georgian-Turkish and the Iraqi-Turkish border to Baumgarten.

"We are convinced that we have submitted a competitive and comprehensive proposal to the Shah Deniz II Consortium, and that this proposal represents a win-win situation for our shareholders and for suppliers alike," Nabucco Gas Pipeline International managing director Reinhard Mitschek said in the statement.

Austria's OMV, Bulgarian Energy Holding, Turkey's Botas, Romania's Transgaz, Hungary's MOL and Germany's RWE are equal partners in the Vienna-based Nabucco Gas Pipeline International.

"We still believe Nabucco classic to be the best solution for all stakeholder, producer, customer, grid operator," RWE spokeswoman Annett Urbaczka told SeeNews in an emailed statement earlier this week.

The new proposition changes the general conditions for the project, she said.

"The upcoming decisions of the Shah Deniz will be very important for us. We currently carefully analyse whether we can meet our commercial and strategic goals under these conditions," Urbaczka added.

According to the Nabucco website, the Shah Deniz Consortium has announced that it expects to make a final route selection ahead of mid-2013, and a decision for the central European section in the course of June 2012.

The Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan is estimated to contain 1.2 trillion cubic metres of gas.

Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH was set up in 2004 to develop, construct and operate the Nabucco pipeline, designed to connect the Caspian region and the Middle East with the Turkish and European gas markets, ensuring diversification of routes and sources and thus contributing to the security of gas supplies.

 
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(Originally published May 17, 2012, by SeeNews.)