Another EUR3.75 million will be provided by Austrian oil and gas company OMV, also a shareholder in the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International, a joint venture set up to manage the now-defunct Nabucco West pipeline project.
Transgaz and OMV announced recently they would lend up to EUR7.5 million to Nabucco to avoid an uncontrolled bankruptcy of the joint venture.
In addition, the Romanian company will contribute another EUR1.34 million to a capital increase of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International.
The Nabucco pipeline was supposed to transport Azeri gas from Turkey to Austria. However, the consortium developing Azerbaijan’s largest gas field Shah Deniz-2 has opted for rival Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to ship its gas to the European market.
Following the failure of its pipeline project, Nabucco Gas Pipeline International has started procedures for a controlled shutdown, Transgaz said. The overall budget for the shutdown was set at EUR20 million.
Transgaz announced recently it has written down assets worth 110.7 million lei (EUR25.1 million) in relation to the Nabucco West project and said that it could take additional charges of up to RON6.6 million.
In turn, OMV took a one-time charge of EUR55 million because of the failed project.
The other shareholders in the project are Bulgarian BEH, Hungary’s MOL, Turkish Botas and French GDF Suez.