In a sign that Baku is still busy haggling over Nabucco, Azerbaijan’s state energy behemoth on Wednesday announced that the gas transit project is not the only fish in Azerbaijan's gas-rich Caspian Sea waters. This comes just on the eve of the June 6 signing of a memorandum on the pipeline project by energy companies from Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Germany and Austria.

“Everything is possible. There are many projects and we are considering all of them,” said State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) President Rovnag Abdullayev. Whoever offers the best deal will get Azerbaijani gas, he said.

In its Nabucco comments, Azerbaijan has switched regularly from the laudatory to the indifferent, an apparent reflection of the turns in its epic bargaining with project promoters and participants. It remains to be seen if this latest change in mood will somehow give Baku  greater  leverage.

Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz earlier this week underlined that the pipeline participants have a Plan B if Azerbaijan gets cold feet -- namely, Turkmenstan, Iraq and Iran.

"[W]e cannot lose time and we'll use all of the options," Yildiz said, CNN-Türk reported.