TEHRAN: An Iranian official has said that European firms are in talks for Iran to join the EU’s flagship Nabucco gas pipeline project, which aims to reduce the bloc’s reliance on Russia, Mehr news agency reported.

“At the moment some European companies have started unofficial talks for Iran to join this pipeline,” Mehr quoted Reza Kasaizadeh, managing director of National Iranian Gas Exports

Company, as saying. He gave no details. The European Union is planning to build the 3,300-kilometre Nabucco pipeline to transport gas from the Middle East and Central Asia

to its energy-hungry consumers in Europe while bypassing Russia.

Critics have said that if the Nabucco project is to be profitable it will

definitely need gas from Iran, which holds the world’s second largest gas reserves but is also subject to international sanctions over its sensitive nuclear programme.

Even though importing gas to cover domestic needs, Iran has repeatedly insisted that the Nabucco plan will not succeed without its vast, untapped gas reserves.

Iran imports 25 million cubic metres a day of gas from Turkmenistan and plans to increase it by eight million cubic metres in the coming months. It exports around the same amount to Turkey.

The nation of over 70 million people has faced gas shortages due to high consumption, especially in winter. The high demand has led Iran to cut gas supply to Turkey several times in the past.