Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 26 /Trend, A.Badalova/
The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) started a near-shore survey near San Foca, Lecce, in Italy, TAP reported.
The purpose of the survey is to collect samples of the soil on the Adriatic seabed along the future route of the pipeline, which plans to bring Caspian gas to southern Italy.
The seabed survey, which is carried out by TAP with the support of sub-contractor D'Appolonia (Italian leader in engineering) involves the utilisation of a jack-up platform near the shore to perform a geotechnical soil investigation.
"Depending on the weather conditions, the jack-up platform should complete its acitivities by the middle of February. The jark up right will then be moved out and it will replafced by a barge which will complete the scientific investigation. This barge will be in the San Foca area until the middle of March depedning again on weather conditions," TAP's report says.
TAP is one of the projects within the Southern Gas Corridor, which is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into western Europe.
TAP's proposed pipeline system in Puglia (Italy) consists of approximately 45 km offshore section, a 5 km long onshore pipeline followed by the fiscal measurement of the gas at the Pipeline Receiving terminal (PRT).
TAP is preparing to submit its Environmental and Social Impact Assesment Report to the Italian authorities in February, 2012.
On Oct. 1, TAP along with the other Southern Gas Corridor projects (Nabucco and ITGI) submitted the final proposals to the Azerbaijani side, which will review them in accordance with the previously announced criteria.
Construciton of TAP is expected to start in 2015, should the project be selected as the preferred gas transportaiton solution by Shah Deniz consortium later this year.
The initial pipeline capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic metres per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic metres per year. TAP's shareholders are EGL of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent).