Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 1 / Trend A.Badalova /
The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has the potential to create new gas markets and enhance energy security in South East Europe, the spokesperson for TAP told Trend.
"Through agreements with other pipeline system operators and national governments, and its commitment to channel a proportion of TAP's capacity into the South Eastern European region, TAP has the potential to create new gas markets and enhance energy security in South East Europe," the spokesperson wrote Trend via e-mail.
According to the TAP's spokesperson, interconnections with other pipeline systems along its route will give TAP the potential to provide gas to a range of key markets in South East Europe including Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, FYROM, Bulgaria and Serbia.
"For example, a connection to the planned Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP) will enable supplies transported through TAP to flow directly to many of these countries. TAP continues to support the facilitation of gas deliveries to the region," the spokesperson said.
IAP is a proposed gas pipeline in Western Balkans. TAP has already signed memorandums of understanding and cooperation with developers of the IAP project, including Plinacro (Croatia), BH-Gas (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Geoplin Plinovodi (Slovenia), as well as with the governments of Montenegro and Albania.
According to the spokesperson in TAP, a joint working group of TAP and IAP meets regularly to align both pipeline projects' schedules and technical issues of interconnection, and "TAP will continue to work closely with the developers of IAP on alignment".
TAP project is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and then to Western Europe. The gas which will be produced in the second phase of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development, is considered as the main source of the project. In late June the Shah Deniz Consortium selected TAP as a gas transportation route to European markets.
The spokesperson stressed that TAP's landfall in Italy provides multiple opportunities for transporting Caspian gas further to the west - to France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and even the UK. "TAP can reach Austria and Hungary via the Trans Austria Gas (TAG) pipeline, Germany and France via the Transitgas pipeline through Switzerland," the spokesperson said.
Importantly, according to the spokesperson TAP can supply Bulgaria by connecting to existing or planned infrastructure such as Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria, or using reverse flow on, for example, on the Interconnector Kula-Sidirokastro.
The spokesperson also stressed that in the last few months TAP had several productive meetings with ICGB, the company developing Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) to explore the possibility of interconnection of our systems.
"We are confident that a mutually beneficial solution will be found through the efforts of all involved parties to enable gas deliveries into Bulgaria especially given the announcement a week ago in Baku where BulgarGaz was selected as one of the purchasers of Shah Deniz gas," the spokesperson said.
Earlier, a source at the Energy Department of the European Commission told Trend that the European Commission stays committed to the development a pipeline through Central-Eastern Europe, adding that the Commission is working on building up the necessary infrastructure in that region.
According to the source, the Commission believes that in the medium term, further pipelines are necessary and it is realistic to connect Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary and Austria.