Russ Oil-Gas

29 June 2007 - Upstream OnLine - Russian gas monopoly Gazprom might still take a stake in the planned Nabucco pipeline that will bring Caspian and Iranian gas to Europe, company boss Alexei Miller said today. Gazprom unveiled a deal last weekend to build a new natural gas pipeline with Italy's Eni under the Black Sea, dubbed South Stream, seen as a possible rival to Nabucco. "If Nabucco has a sound economic basis, has a confirmed demand for gas and the equivalent reserve base, no one can interfere with it," Miller told Moscow-based business daily Kommersant in an interview. "And Gazprom could in the future join the list of participants in Nabucco, even more so as we are in constant contact with its founders," he said. Although Gazprom said South Stream was not aimed as a rival to any other planned lines, its announcement prompted fears in Turkey that South Stream could eclipse Nabucco and threaten Turkey's goal of becoming a major regional energy transit point.