Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan.16 / Trend, A. Taghiyeva /
The Azerbaijani-Turkish gas pipelines Trans Anadolu (TANAP) will help reduce the volume of gas currently being purchased from Russia, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz said in an interview with the Cumhuriyyet newspaper yesterday.
"The TANAP construction project will increase the use of Azerbaijani gas and reduce dependence on Russian gas," Mr Yildiz said.
He said Turkey has done everything necessary to implement the Nabucco project, although the EU has not made any decisions in this direction. Mr Yildiz also said the pipeline will contribute to work being carried out on the Nabucco project by facilitating it.
Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the consortium that will build a gas pipeline to supply gas from the Shah Deniz field to Europe over Turkey.
The construction of the Trans Anadolu gas pipeline (TANAP) is required for the export of the most part of 50 billion cubic metres of gas that Azerbaijan intends to produce by 2025.
All those involved in the project intend to resolve issues on this gas pipeline this year and plans to commence construction immediately will see completion by late 2017. The second phase of development of the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field will be launched during that period.
The consortium on the development of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field (reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic metres) is considering possible routes for gas exports to Europe. In particular, the routes of the Southern Gas Corridor are being studied.
The Nabucco project is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region and Middle East to the EU. Construction of the Nabucco project is planned to start in 2013 with the first supplies scheduled for 2017. The total length of the pipeline is 3900 kilometres with a maximum capacity of 31 billion cubic metres per year. The project's partners include the Austrian OMV, Hungarian MOL, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas and the German RWE.