Participants in the Nabucco gas pipeline project should speed up preparations and garner political consensus, Bulgaria's Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov and Hungarian coordinator for Nabucco Mihaly Bayer said in a joint statement after a meeting in Sofia on June 27.

Dimitrov added that despite the fact that the project was on the European Commission's priority list, preparations were running too slow. Hence political support was integral if the 7.9 billion euro project was to become reality.

"The problems Nabucco faces are not purely economic and they could not be solved only by the companies that are participating," he said.

The minister invited all parties to the project to convene in Sofia and iron out differences. The project has Austria's OMV, Germany's RWE, Hungary's MOL, Turkey's Botas, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz and Romania's Transgaz as participants.

The 3,300km pipeline is intended to pump 30 billion cu m a year as of 2013. Nonetheless, the project has run into a series of obstacles such as security of supplies, the rival project South Stream and US reluctance to source Iranian gas.

The project operator has courted Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Egypt and Iraq as potential gas suppliers. Presently, only Azerbaijan pledged readiness to supply gas.