Hungary's oil and gas firm MOL and other project participants have not confirmed their withdrawal from the Western-backed Nabucco gas pipeline project, European Commission energy spokesperson Marlene Holzner said on Tuesday.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said earlier on Monday that MOL was leaving the Nabucco project, Bloomberg reported.
MOL has not confirmed the report of its withdrawal from Nabucco, Holzner told reporters.
"The Nabucco shareholder in Hungary is FGSZ, a MOL subsidiary, and we have not had any indication that this will change," the Nabucco Consortium said on Tuesday afternoon.
Nabucco, which is intended to pump 31 bcm of natural gas, is part of the EU's effort to diversify its natural gas supplies and reduce the region's dependence on Russian gas.
Russia's South Stream pipeline project, designed to deliver up to 63 billion cubic meters of Central Asian and Russian natural gas under the Black Sea to Europe, is generally regarded as a rival to the Nabucco pipeline.
The Nabucco project is in doubt as no final decision has yet been made about pipeline routes, financing and gas supply sources. In an attempt to find the suppliers, the project participants are in talks with Azerbaijan to transport gas from the Shah Deniz II field.
The project's shareholders are Austria's OMV, Hungary's MOL, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz as well as Romania's Transgaz, Turkey's Botas and Germany's RWE with equal stakes of 16.67 percent.
