Rainer Schlang, OMV retail and commercial manager for Bulgaria , Romania and Serbia , said during the EeastEuro Link energy conference in Sofia yesterday that he sees no barriers before the timely implementation of the Nabucco project for transit of natural gas from Azerbaijan , Iran and Egypt to Central Europe . He expects pipeline construction works to start in 2008 in line with the initial time schedule. According to Schlang, the recently announced projects of Russia 's Gazprom to expand the Blue Stream gas transit through routes in Southeast Europe are not in conflict with Nabucco and will not have any negative effects. Austria 's OMV is one of the five key players in the Nabucco project along with the gas companies of the other four transit countries -- Turkey , Bulgaria , Romania , and Hungary . The project is valued at EUR 4.6bn and is set by the EU authorities as a key instrument for diversification of gas supplies and reducing Europe 's dependence on Russian energy sources.