Budapest  - Financing for a proposed European gas pipeline that skirts Russia may be delayed by the global credit crunch, a Hungarian official was quoted Tuesday as saying.

But Mihaly Bayer, Hungary's special envoy for the Nabucco pipeline, insisted that governments could still be able to sign an agreement this year to launch the project, the MTI news agency reported.

The 3,300-kilometre line is slated to run Caspian gas via Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to an Austrian distribution hub. Gas is to start flowing in 2013.

Shareholders of the planned 7.9-billion-euro (11.6-billion-dollar) project - a rival to Russia's proposed South Stream pipeline - include Austrian energy company OMV and Germany's RWE.

Long-running questions about Nabucco's supply security have intensified since Russia's invasion and brief war with Georgia last month.

Supplies from Iran could be a key to making the project work, the head of Hungarian oil company MOL - a Nabucco shareholder - said Monday.

"Nabucco will be a reality if we can get Iranian gas," MOL chief executive Zsolt Hernadi said in Vienna.

Iran has offered its gas for Nabucco, but the European Union has reached no decision. (dpa)