Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan.24 / Trend A.Badalova /
ITGI (Turkey-Greece-Italy gas pipeline) project is fully compliant with any option to transit Azerbaijani gas through Turkey, CEO of IGI Poseidon and head of international gas infrastructures in Italian energy company Edison Elio Ruggeri said in the statement, disseminated by APCO Worldwide on Tuesday.
"The ITGI project starting at the Turkish-Greek border is fully compliant with any option to transit Azeri gas through Turkey, including TANAP (Trans-Anatolian Pipeline)," Ruggeri said.
TANAP is a proposed Azerbaijan-Turkish project which envisages a construction of pipeline from the eastern border of Turkey to the country's western border.
Ruggeri stressed that ITGI is the most advanced project within the Southern Gas Corridor which is able to start construction works as soon as gas from the second phase of Azerbaijani gas condensate field development is allocated from the on-going commercial bid.
"It is worth noting also other Southern Corridor projects targeting Italy are still in a very preliminary phase and will require significant time for completion," Ruggeri said.
ITGI is one of the proposed projects within the Southern gas Corridor, which involves gas supplies from the Caspian region and the Middle East to the EU countries. The project includes a modernised Turkish pipeline infrastructure, as well as an Interconnector Turkey-Greece (ITG projects) and an Italy-Greece interconnector (IGI). The project shareholders are the Greek company DEPA and Italy's Edison. The total estimated project cost is 1.5 to 2 billion euros.
The initial planned capacity of the ITGI pipeline will hit 10 billion cubic metres per year. One billion cubic metres will be transported to Bulgaria, one billion cubic metres to Greece, while the remaining eight billion cubic metres will go to Italy.
The Edison and Depa companies established IGI Poseidon SA to develop and construct the Greece-Italy pipeline known as Poseidon.
Gas, which will be produced within the second phase of Shah-Deniz field development is regarded as the main source for the project.
ITGI along the other pipeline projects within the Southern Gas Corridor have submitted final proposals to the Azerbaijani side, which will make its decision on preferable transportation route in the first quarter of 2012.
The Chairman of IGI Poseidon and Chairman and CEO of DEPA Harry Sachinis said that ITGI is the most technically advanced project enabling ITGI to have a high degree of certainty in its cost estimates for the project, which is the cornerstone of developing a competitive tariff.
"There is no opportunity to support a large pipeline today. The only gas available today will be the 10 bcm from Shah Deniz II, which matches perfectly ITGI's capacity," Sachinis said.