Ankara - Four EU states plus Turkey signed a deal on Monday in the Turkish capital Ankara paving the way for the Nabucco pipeline to bring gas to Europe. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the basis for the construction of the pipeline has now been created.
The EU intends to use the pipeline to reduce its dependency on Russian gas, and has pledged nearly 250 million euros (348 million dollars) to support the project.
The pipeline, tipped to cost some 7.9 billion euros, is planned to carry an initial load of 8 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year when it comes online in 2014, and quadruple that figure by the end of the decade.
Nabucco is a consortium of OMV of Austria, MOL of Hungary, Transgaz of Romania, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz, Turkey's Botas, and RWE from Germany.
