* Nabucco could get future Azeri gas supply - SOCAR
* Shah Deniz formally selects TAP pipeline to Italy
* Spot pricing could be advantage over Russian gas
By Lada Evgrashina
BAKU, June 28 (Reuters) - Central Europe could get futuresupplies of Azeri natural gas, energy company SOCAR said onFriday, after passing over the region in favour of a projectthat will pipe Azerbaijan's first European deliveries to Italy.
Capping more than a decade of planning, SOCAR and partnersincluding BP and Statoil formally selected theTrans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) on Friday.
TAP plans to deliver 10 billion cubic metres of Azeri gas toEurope each year beginning in 2019, linking a Turkish pipelineto southern Italy via Greece and Albania.
It will tap Azerbaijan's vast Shah Deniz II project in theCaspian Sea, one of the world's largest gas fields with anexpected investment of more than $40 billion includingpipelines, and help Europe reduce its reliance on Russian gas.
The decision meant defeat for the rival Nabucco West projectwhich had hoped to build a central European pipeline to Austriavia Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.
Yet SOCAR noted Azerbaijan's gas exports will increasedramatically after the development of additional fields such asACG Deep, Absheron, Umid and Shafag-Asiman.
"We clearly see the Nabucco pipeline corridor as the naturalmarket for our future volumes of gas," Rovnag Abdullayev,president of SOCAR, told a news conference.
"We expect that the ability of the southern corridor tobring new sources of supply to European markets will extendbeyond the immediate areas transitted by TAP," he said.
The European Commission also saw scope for central Europeandeliveries in the future.
"In principle, gas from the Caspian Sea could be deliveredto the EU both to Baumgarten/Vienna (Nabucco West) or to Italy(TAP)," the Commission said in a statement.
Regarding the selection of TAP, Shah Deniz consortium memberBP said there was a "substantial" commercial difference betweenthe two competing pipeline projects, including the cost ofshipping the Azeri gas and gas prices in the respective markets.
Analysts at consultancy Wood Mackenzie said Azeri gascontracts could include a high proportion of spot-indexationrather than deals linked to oil prices.
Offering contracts largely based on spot gas prices wouldgive Azerbaijan an advantage over supply from Russia's Gazprom, whose contracts linked to oil prices have causedfriction with some European gas buyers.
TAP PARTNERS
TAP shareholders are Statoil, Swiss company AXPO and Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas. Nabucco West is led byAustrian energy company OMV.
OMV reiterated comments made earlier this week that itconsidered the Nabucco project over.
The Nabucco consortium said its shareholders would decide onits next steps in the coming weeks, and OMV said it might turnits attention to gas for Europe from the Black Sea.
The TAP decision prompted a flurry of potential partners tocome forward.
Belgium's Fluxys is expected to join the group by August,TAP managing director Kjetil Tungland said, while Shah Denizmembers SOCAR, BP and France's Total said they wouldtake stakes in the pipeline project by the end of the year.
Transit countries Turkey and Greece also said they wereassessing options to join the project.
Greece's DEPA has made an offer to buy 1 billion cubicmetres of the Azeri supply, the Greek deputy energy ministersaid.
In response to Europe's quest for Caspian supply, Russia'sGazprom has put forth its $39 billion South Stream project whichwould pipe gas to northeast Italy via the Black Sea.
BP (BP.)