An agreement on support to Nabucco gas pipeline project is planned to be signed in Ankara օn August.

The document will be signed by the ministers of the participant countries-Turkey, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, reports quoting the Turkish newspapers, Azerbaijani APA agency reports.

Nabucco shareholders are negotiating the gas supply issues with Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. If the negotiations succeed, the pipeline extension will be enlarged from 3 300 km to 4000 km, which will cause 10% boost in pipeline costs.

Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH was founded for the construction of Nabucco pipeline, which will carry the Caspian gas to the Central Europe via Turkey and Balkans. The shareholders of the company are OMV (Austria), MOL (Hungary), Transgaz (Romania), Bulgargaz (Bulgaria), BOTAŞ (Turkey), RWE (Germany). Each of the shareholders holds 16.67% of the shares. The shareholders will meet 1/3 of the project expenses and other part will be funded by the financial-credit organizations. Total investment cost of the project was increased from €4.6 billion to €7.9 billion ($12.3 billion). The pipeline is expected to be operational by 2013 and it will carry 31 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.