Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 20
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) can easily connect to the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) once the pipeline is ready, the source in TAP project told Trend.
"TAP has signed a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation with IGB and can easily connect once the pipeline has been built," the source said.
The acceleration of the IGB project was one of the main topics of discussions during the recent meeting of the US Department of State's Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein with Greece's Environment and Energy Minister Panos Skourletis and Bulgaria's Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova in Athens.
Bulgaria and Greece plans to hold a ministerial-level meeting in Sofia this week to discuss the IGB project.
Earlier Nikolay Nikolov, Deputy Energy Minister of Bulgaria said the country is ready to complete the deal on constructing the IGB to neighboring Greece, however, it waits for a decision of the new government in Athens.
IGB is a gas pipeline, which will allow Bulgaria to receive Azerbaijani gas, in particular, the gas produced from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz 2 gas and condensate field.
IGB is expected to be connected to the Trans Adriatic pipeline via which gas from the Shah Deniz field will be delivered to the European markets.
In January, 2014, a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation was signed between TAP and ICGB - the company in charge of the development, financing and construction the IGB. The memorandum aimed at establishing the technical cooperation in order to further develop strategic infrastructure in the region.
Earlier the source in TAP told Trend that the project is continuing its development according to schedule and will be ready to transport gas from Shah Deniz II when it comes on stream in 2020.
TAP will begin construction next year and the overall construction phase will take approximately 3.5 years.
TAP's initial capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic meters per year.