The debate is still going strong about the commercial viability of the Nabucco gas pipeline project, due to be operational in 2012, for carrying gas from the countries of Central Asia and the countries around the Caspian Sea to the Community market circumventing Russia”. “It is a gas pipeline without gas. You don't first build the pipeline and then go looking for the gas!” said Christophe de Margerie, CEO of the French energy group, Total, during a debate organised in Brussels on 14 October by Friends of Europe, attended also by the director general for external relations at the European Commission, Eneko Landaburu. “Nabucco is not a political issue, it is a question of gas. Where is the gas? Who wants to buy it? The gas must come from Iran, and with an embargo on Iran, Iranian gas will not flow into Nabucco”, Mr de Margerie added. This bears witness to the fact that Russia, which has shown an interest in providing the gas pipeline that is supposed to go round it, “was quick to understand” how things lay, added Mr de Margerie, stressing that Moscow has already signed cooperation agreements with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. (E.H./transl.jl)