Nabucco group starts detailed talks with lenders

VIENNA Oct 22 (Reuters) - The Nabucco pipeline consortium said on Thursday it has started detailed talks with investors and will have a lending plan for the 7.9 billion-euro ($11.8 billion) pipeline in place next year. Nabucco plans to transport up to 31 billion cubic metres of gas a year from the Caspian region to an Austrian gas hub via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.

The pipeline, set to pump its first gas in 2014, should lessen Europe's dependence on Russian gas but faces rivalry from a similar project launched by Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM).

"Nabucco has started detailed discussions with the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and will soon also enter into a dialogue also with the International Finance Corporation," Nabucco Managing Director Reinhard Mitschek said in a statement.

Nabucco has leaned more towards international financing institutions and export credit agencies for funding than commercial banks with the onset of the financial crisis.

The consortium had previously planned to raise around a third of the debt each from commercial banks, export credit agencies and global bodies such as the EBRD.

"We expect that next year the scope of involvement of the individual lenders will become clear," Mitschek said in the statement.

Nabucco has been in touch with export credit agencies in Europe, the United States and Japan to seek support for the project in loan covers and guarantees, he added. The consortium members will also provide equity capital.

Nabucco's shareholders are Austria's OMV (OMVV.VI), Germany's RWE (RWEG.DE) Hungary's MOL MOLB.BU, Romania's Transgaz TGNM.BX, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz and Turkey's Botas.

French group GDF Suez (GSZ.PA) has been mooted as a potential seventh partner [ID:nLL27819]. (Reporting by Sylvia Westall, editing by Anthony Barker)