Nabucco will stand alone, spokesman says

VIENNA, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- The Nabucco natural gas pipeline for Europe won't merge with any other project in the Southern Corridor, a spokesman said from Vienna.

Political flare-ups between Kiev and Moscow exposed vulnerabilities in the European energy sector, prompting Europe to look for diversification options through a series of pipelines dubbed the Southern Corridor.

Europe gets about one-quarter of its gas from Russia but 80 percent of it runs through Ukraine's pipelines.

European officials have suggested merging two Southern Corridor projects -- Nabucco and the Interconnection Turkey-Greece-Italy project -- as an option for "beneficial cooperation," the European news agency EurActiv reports.

Nabucco spokesman Christian Dolezal, however, said the $10.7 billion project would stand by itself.

"Nabucco is being developed as a stand-alone pipeline and will be a crucial link between the Caspian region and Middle East region and Europe," he told the news agency.

Several of the diversification plans for Europe involve natural gas from Azerbaijan. The European community reached an agreement with Baku for natural gas for the planned Nabucco pipeline, though Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom continues to work in Azerbaijan.

Azeri officials, who note gas production there is set to double by 2020, note their country wasn't interested in having just a single customer for its natural resources.