The project to lay the 3,300 kilometre-long Nabucco gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea region to the EU countries bypassing Russia may be dropped for good by late June.

This came in a statement by the business circles of the City of London.

The Nabucco project was thought up by the CEOs of the Hungarian and Bulgarian energy companies in autumn 2002 during a dinner in Vienna to music from Verdi’s opera of the same name, and was due to be commissioned in 2014.

According to experts, the fiasco of the project was predetermined by some drastic changes on the world gas market.

A number of world energy giants, including BP, have, besides, pulled out of the project.

The EU has seen Nabucco as an alternative to gas transportation to Europe via Russia.

On May 16, the Nabucco Consortium presented a revised, smaller version of the gas pipeline project called Nabucco West to the consortium developing the Shah Deniz II gas field in Azerbaijan.

On Sunday, Dimitar Abadzhiev, Bulgaria's representative in Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, sought to dispel claims that the EU-backed energy diversification project is unfeasible.