Europe: Planning to make Nabucco dream a reality

FOR A pipeline that is not yet built and does not know where it will source the gas it needs, Nabucco is making a good show of a bad position. Last month, Gottfried Steiner, head of international affairs at OMV's gas division, laid out the company's ideas for how the pipeline's capacity would be divided. While the plans make the project central to OMV's efforts to become the main player in Central Europe's gas business, analysts say they remain fantasy. OMV heads a consortium including Hungary's Mol, Romania's Transgaz, Bulgargaz of Bulgaria and Turkey's Botas that wants to develop Nabucco, a gas pipeline that could eventually deliver up to 30bn cubic metres a year (cm/y) of gas to OMV's Bau