Baku, Azerbaijan, March 6
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
In the peak period of implementation of the projects as part of the second phase of development of Shah Deniz gas condensate field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, the daily volume of investments will be $30 million, BP's Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, Gordon Birrell said on March 5 while giving a lecture to Khazar University students.
Alongside work on platform construction and a subsea infrastructure in the process of ensuring gas supply to Europe under the Shah Deniz-2 project, it is also planned to carry out work on expanding the Sangachal terminal, South Caucasus gas pipeline and construction of the Trans-Anatolian and Trans-Adriatic gas pipelines, according to Birrell.
The maximal and peak volume of work with the projects will fall on 2016-2017, Gordon Birrell said.
In the peak period of implementation of all the projects under Shah Deniz-2, $15 million of the total volume of expenditure per day will fall to projects operated by BP, Birrell said.
On December 17, 2013, a final investment decision was made on the second phase of the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz offshore gas and condensate field's development.
Gas from the field will go first to the European market. The gas to be produced within the second phase of the field's development will be exported to Turkey at six billion cubic meters per year and to European markets (10 billion cubic meters per year) by means of expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and construction of the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).
The initial capacity of the TAP pipeline will be 10 billion cubic meters per year with the possibility of expanding to 20 billion cubic meters per year.
TAP shareholders are BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Statoil (20 percent), Fluxys (16 percent), Total (10 percent), E.ON (nine percent) and Axpo (five percent).
Partners for development of the Shah Deniz field with reserves of around 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas include such companies as the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) with a 16.7 percent share, BP (28.8 percent), Norway's Statoil (15.5 percent), Iran's NICO (10 percent), the French Total (10 percent), Russia's Lukoil (10 percent) and Turkish TPAO (nine percent)
The TANAP project envisages transporting gas from the Shah Deniz field through Turkey up to the country's border with Europe. The initial capacity of the pipeline is expected to be 16 billion cubic meters per year. About six billion cubic meters of gas will be delivered to Turkey and the rest to Europe. In future, the pipeline's capacity can be expanded to 31 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
Currently the share distribution in the TANAP project is Turkey (20 percent) and Azerbaijan (80 percent). Following the completion of the process to acquire a stake in the TANAP project by British company BP, shares in the project will be distributed as follows: SOCAR (operator) - 68 percent , Botas (Turkish state pipeline company) - 20 percent and BP - 12 percent.
TANAP shareholders plan to lay the pipeline's foundation in the second quarter of 2014 and to commission it in 2018. TANAP project cost is estimated at $10 billion to $11 billion.
Translated by L.Z.
Edited by S.M.