CEO of the Austrian energy company OMV Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer stated in an interview for Dnevnik Daily that the two major gas pipelines Nabucco and Blue Stream II may join in Bulgaria. Construction works on the EUR 4.5bn Nabucco project for building a 3,300-km pipeline for transport of natural gas from Iran and Azerbaijan to Central Europe through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Austria are expected to start in 2008. The transit capacity of the pipeline is projected at 25.5bn cubic metres per year in the base case and 31bn cubic metres in the high case. First gas supplies are projected in 2011 at earliest. Last month, Gazprom and Italy’s ENI reached a preliminary agreement on a large-scale gas transit project, Blue Stream II or South Stream, with annual transport capacity of up to 30bn cubic metres directed to Italy and possibly Serbia and Hungary through the Black Sea and Bulgaria.