PARIS, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that Gaz de France wanted to join the Nabucco project to build a trans-Caspian natural gas pipeline bypassing Russia.
The $6 billion pipeline project is expected to link energy-rich Central Asia to Europe through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2009, so that the pipeline could go on stream in 2012.
The statement the president made during his visit to Hungary was confirmed by Jean-Marie Dauger, managing director of the French energy company.
The European Union expects the project to diversify its supply routes away from Russia and to boost European energy security.
Nabucco, planned as an arm of the South Caucasus pipeline, is seen as a rival to the gas pipeline deal recently clinched by Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, the region's major gas producers, May 12.
The three former Soviet allies agreed to build a pipeline along the Caspian Sea coast to pump billions of cubic meters of natural gas from Turkmenistan to Kazakhstan into Russia's network of pipelines running to Europe.
