The Russian energy giant Gazprom does not regard the Nabucco gas pipeline project as a rival to its own South Stream project, Gazprom deputy chairman Alexander Medvedev said on Friday.

"We have no intention of reducing the role of Nabucco because we do not regard it as a rival project," Medvedev told a news conference in Berlin.

"If the participants of the [Nabucco] project can find gas, form a good corporative leadership and secure partners, God help them. South Stream has it all already," he said.

The Nabucco project is intended to transport natural gas from the Caspian Sea region to Europe via Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Austria, bypassing Russia. It is designed to annually transport 31 billion cubic meters of gas, which would meet as much as 5 percent of EU demand in 2020.

Gazprom's South Stream project is to run under the Black Sea through Turkish waters to Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Austria.

Both Russia and the EU deny that the planned pipelines would be rivals, but the bulk of the gas for each project would come from the same Caspian region countries.

BERLIN, July 30 (RIA Novosti)