Plans for the massive Nabucco pipeline that would lessen European dependence on Russia were dealt a blow Tuesday when Hungarian oil and gas company MOL Nyrt Tuesday announced that it won't finance the project in 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A MOL statement released Tuesday afternoon said the company had "continuously" raised doubts about Nabucco. Given that these concerns "still exist," MOL "does not consider the further financing of the Nabucco International Co. sustainable and therefore it did not approve the 2012 annual budget of NIC."
 

While the EU continues to endorse Nabucco, the MOL statement marks the latest major blow to an EU priority that has been hit by high costs and uncertain gas supplies.
 

A spokesman for the Nabucco coalition said late Tuesday that the group had no comment on the latest MOL statement.

MOL is now the second major shareholder to publicly reconsider its role in the Nabucco consortium, after Germany's RWE AG's RWE.XE 0.00% chief executive said earlier this year that it could scrap its plans for the long-discussed pipeline, which aims to lessen EU dependency on Russian gas.


MOL and RWE RWE.XE 0.00% are two of the main shareholders in the consortium and their failure to support the project would put in serious doubt its feasibility. Austria's OMV AG and three other companies are also part of Nabucco.