VIENNA (EUbusiness) -- A final decision on whether the European Union's flagship Nabucco gas pipeline can go ahead has been put back until early next year, the Austrian partner in the consortium, OMV, said.

""The final decision will be made in the first quarter of 2008,"" instead of the end of this year, OMV gas chief Werner Auli told Friday's WirtschaftsBlatt daily.
The 3,300-kilometer (2,050-mile) Nabucco pipeline, scheduled for completion in 2012, is to transport gas to the energy-hungry EU from the Middle East and Asia so as to reduce the bloc's reliance on Russian supplies.
Supply interruptions after recent standoffs between Russia, the world's biggest exporter of gas, and key transit countries Ukraine and Belarus have stoked fears in Europe of an overdependence on Russian energy sources.
But critics argue that Nabucco would need gas from Iran, holder of the world's second largest gas reserves, for the project to be profitable.
Consortium partners, OMV of Austria, MOL of Hungary, Transgaz of Romania, Bulgargaz of Bulgaria and Botas of Turkey, do not agree.
""We know the chicken-before-the-egg problem,"" Auli told the newspaper. ""But we're practically fully booked already now,"" he countered.
Earlier this week, a spokesman for EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs argued that the issue of Iranian gas was ""irrelevant"" for the realization of the Nabucco pipeline.
The EU Commission is convinced that the Caspian Sea region can provide large amounts of gas for the Nabucco pipeline, the spokesman said.
Another issue that has to be resolved is the search by Nabucco's current five partners for a sixth.
Auli refused to say whether RWE of Germany or French giant Gaz de France might sign up to the project.
WirtschaftsBlatt quoted insiders as saying that RWE had a better chance.