TURKEY BACKS RWE FOR NABUCCO PROJECT

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Reuters Ankara, Stanbul
Aug 3 2007

Turkey favours German energy company RWE as the sixth partner in the
Nabucco pipeline, which will carry Caspian and Middle Eastern gas to
European markets, an energy ministry official said.

He said he preferred RWE over Gaz de France, which is also in talks
with the Nabucco gas group, as the project’s sixth partner. "We have
had meetings with RWE officials and they are continuing. Turkey is on
the side of the German firm becoming a partner in Nabucco. We can say
that RWE is ahead of Gaz de France in becoming a long term partner,"
the official said late on Wednesday.

Earlier this year a Turkish official told Reuters it had suspended
talks with Gaz de France on it becoming a partner in Nabucco after
France passed a bill making denial of an Armenian genocide at the
hands of Ottoman Turks a crime.

The official said the genocide bill was still a factor in their
preference of RWE over Gaz de France.

"Our position is the same," he said.

Turkey denies that Ottoman Turks committed a systematic genocide
against 1.5 million Armenians during World War One and and has said
it would take punitive measures against countries that enacted such
legislation.

The five signatory companies to the pipeline project — Austria’s OMV,
Hungary’s MOL, Romania’s Transgaz, Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz and Turkey’s
Botas have been looking for a sixth partner. A source close to the
talks has said a partner may be chosen by October.

A Botaþ official said the five Nabucco signatories hope to choose a
construction company for the project by the end of this year.

"We plan to work out the technical details for the tender documents
within the next two months … and we hope to select a construction
company by the end of this year," said Emre Engur, head of
international operations at Botaþ.

The 4.6 billion euro ($6.14 billion) pipeline project has been seen
as a way of easing Russia’s hold on Europe’s gas resources after the
country cut off its supplies to Ukraine following a political row.

In June, Russia’s Gazprom announced that it was building a natural gas
pipeline with Itay’s Eni under the Black Sea to Bulgaria, from where
it would stretch to Italy, in a project that would compete directly
with Nabucco.

European gas demand is expected to increase sharply in the coming years
and depend more on imports, as output from European fields shrinks.

The Nabucco group has yet to determine the financing structure for
the pipeline as well as choose its final member.

–Boundary_(ID_jLZJGwI/EKMzKRTbZSfyrA)–