Bulgaria's Bulgargaz, a subsidiary of the Bulgarian Energy Holding, will participate in the official signing of an agreement on the Nabucco gas transit pipeline in Turkey on June 6, 2011.

Besides the Bulgarian company, the shareholders which will sign the agreement are OMV (Austria), BOTAS (Turkey), Transgaz (Romania), Mol Natural Gas (Hungary) and RWE (Germany)

Each shareholder holds an equal share of 16.67% of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH. Nabucco is estimated to cost EUR 8 B, and Bulgaria, as a partner with 1/6 of the shares, will be expected to provide 1/6 of the total sum, or about EUR 1.3 B, rather than finance just the section on its territory. Bulgaria plans to finance its share in Nabucco with a EUR 1.2 B loan from the European Investment Bank.

The sides engaged in the project are waiting for a decisive answer from Azerbaijan on its possible participation.

"If Azerbaijan's response will be negative, we'll contact with Turkmenistan, Iraq and Iran. This project has a great importance for both of us and Europe. That's why we can not lose time and we'll use all of the options," Taner Yildiz commented on Azerbaijan's possible participation I the project, as cited by the Azarbaijani APA agency.

Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, the Vienna-based project company, has been involved in talks with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, and the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, asking for an EUR 4 B loan. These negotiations are expected to be completed in 2011.

The Nabucco gas pipeline is supposed to reduce EU's energy dependence on Russia by bringing in natural gas from the Caspian region, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

The direct investments in the Bulgarian economy from the construction of Nabucco will be about EUR 400 M and a few hundred jobs. Another about 1000 jobs will be created indirectly by the project.

At the beginning of May, it was announced that the Nabucco project company has pushed back the start of construction of the pipeline to 2013; thus, Nabucco is now expected to start operations in 2017 instead of 2015, as previously expected.