Italian group Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni suggested that Nabucco and South Stream projects would bring major benefits if they merged, at least along some parts of the transit route.

“What we have here is a situation investment bankers would call strategic coincidence. If all partners decided to merge the two gas pipelines at least along a certain portion of the route, we could cut investment, operating costs and increase yields,” Scaroni said according to upstreamonline.com, quoted by Mediafax.

He added that either project has its own strengths and weaknesses. The Nabucco project has the support of the European Union and US and was designed for transmission of natural gas extracted from the Caspian region and Central Asia to Europe, crossing Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria.

Nabucco is being developed by a consortium made up of Transgaz Medias, OMV Austria (majority shareholder of SNP Petrom), MOL (Hungary), Bulgargaz (Bulgaria), BOTAS (Turkey) and RWE (Germany).

On the other hand, the South Stream pipeline would be conveying natural gas from Russia to Europe beneath the Black Sea, being developed by the world’s biggest gas producer and exporter and by Italian group Eni.