Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 10 / Trend A.Badalova /
Nabucco West project has already started cooperation with the Trans Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP), the Managing Director of the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, Reinhard Mitschek said in interview with Trend in Baku.
"In the early days of TANAP we started cooperation because we envisage negotiating and concluding an interconnection point agreement at Bulgarian-Turkish border," Mitschek said.
He said that Nabucco West also offered its engineering data to TANAP.
"They are in a very early stage. We have done a complete engineering from the Georgian border to the Bulgarian border across Turkey," Mitschek said.
He also added that Nabucco West is ready to assign to TANAP the approvals for environment impact assessment, which are expected by the end of this year.
TANAP project envisages construction of the pipeline from the eastern border of Turkey to the country's western border to supply gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas field to Europe through Turkey.
On June, 26 Azerbaijan and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement on TANAP implementation.
At present, a 20 per cent share in TANAP belongs to Turkish BOTAS, 80 per cent and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR). The initial capacity of the pipeline is expected to reach 16 billion cubic meters a year. About six billion cubic meters will be delivered to Turkey, and the rest - to Europe.
Nabucco West is a short-cut version of Nabucco project, which envisages construction of the pipeline from Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria.
The project's current shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV, German RWE and Hungary's FGSZ, and each of them holds 16.67-percent share.
Currently, the Shah Deniz consortium considers two options to deliver its gas to Europe - TAP and Nabucco West. The final decision on a pipeline route will be made in 2013.