“The feasibility study is not ready by now. We will have a meeting with all shareholders to decide whether the project is still viable. The decision to stop or continue this project will be made this year,” Nita said.
AGRI is a proposed project to transport Azerbaijani natural gas to Romania, via Georgia. The project is estimated at EUR1.2 billion to EUR4.5 billion, depending on the final transport capacity.
The shareholders of AGRI LNG Project Company are Romanian natural gas producer Romgaz Medias (SNG.RO), Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation, State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and Magyar Villamos Művek.
Romania is looking for alternative ways to reduce its dependence on Russian gas after it missed an opportunity with the Nabucco West pipeline project, which lost a bid to transport Azeri gas to the European Union. Nabucco was supposed to transport gas from Turkey to Austria, transiting Romania and Bulgaria.
After Nabucco failure, Romanian authorities announced they would focus on gas and shale gas production in the Black Sea.
Nita added that the reserves in the Black Sea might provide the gas necessary for a rather long period of time, so that it would be difficult to say whether AGRI project is still viable or not.