Brussels, 19/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - The political decision-makers and energy companies of the EU are not stinting in their efforts to make a reality of the Nabucco project, a gas pipeline designed to transport gas from the countries of Central Asia and the Caspian region whilst bypassing Russia, and whose commercial viability is very much in the balance if the option of Iranian gas traversing through its conduits is ruled out. In Baku on 13-14 November, the fourth international conference on energy security saw the governments - at head of state or government and foreign affairs minister level - of several member states of the EU (Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Romania) and of third countries (Georgia and Turkey) -reaffirm their support for the project (EUROPE 9783). The riparian countries of the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, which have major reserves of oil and gas, on the other hand, showed that they remain close to Moscow's sphere of influence by refusing to sign a joint declaration at the Baku summit calling for limits on the Russian monopoly on itineraries for the export of hydrocarbons to Europe (and therefore the diversification of transit routes). This same influence was shown by the host country of the conference, Azerbaijan, which also has major energy resources, and which stated that it was in favour of all rival energy infrastructure projects (and therefore Russian ones also). It will, therefore, not be easy for the EU to win over these three countries, which already have ties with Russia via cooperation agreements and gas contracts, to put their gas reserves into Nabucco. In Baku, the European heads of state and government present, such as Lithuania's Valdas Adamkus, attempted to win over Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, by calling on the EU to cooperate closely with Azerbaijan, through a strategic partnership. One week previously, the European commissioner for energy, Andris Piebalgs, had already visited Baku to plead Europe's cause with President Aliyev, but failed to obtain any real guarantees. Azerbaijan is still negotiating to determine whether it will sell its gas to Europe or to Russia in the future. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met Turkmen President Gourbangouly Berdymoukhamedov in Berlin on Saturday 15 November, and Austrian President Heinz Fischer, who met him in Vienna on Monday 17 November, also took part in the attempted seduction carried out on the leaders of the Caspian Sea countries. Meanwhile, European companies are engaged in operations aiming to ensure supply for Nabucco. Less than one week after Mr Piebalgs said that the consortium of European countries to buy gas from the Caspian may be created by the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010, the Austrian energy company OMV, which is directly involved in Nabucco alongside Hungary's MOL, Romania's Transgaz, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz, the Turkish Botas and the German RWE, stated that it was in talks with the British company BP and the Anglo-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell to buy gas from Azerbaijan and Iraq to supply Nabucco. (E.H./transl.fl)