Kazakhstan will not participate in NABUCCO

Kazakhstan will not be able to participate in the NABUCCO project, the Kazakh Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources recently stated. Aset Magauov said that the country has no free resources it can use to participate in the project, as Kazakhstan is already obliged to supply two other projects with 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas.

NABUCCO is designed to transport thirty one billion cubic metres of gas annually. This huge amount of gas could possibly be provided by Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Iraq and be transported to Europe though Georgia and Turkey. Construction should begin in 2011 and be finished by 2014, at a cost of approximately Euro 7.9 billion.