BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 27. Italy speeds up construction of infrastructure for transit of Azerbaijani gas to central European countries, an article in the Italian Il Messaggero (The Messanger) newspaper, one of the oldest and widely read in the country, Trend reports.
According to the article, Italy intends to remove all bottlenecks preventing gas from the southern part of the country to be supplied to the northern part.
Quoting Vannia Gava, Deputy Minister of the Environment and Energy Security of Italy, the article noted that increasing the capacity of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is one of the main priorities for the government and must be accelerated.
Thus, as noted in the article, Snam, one of the shareholders of TAP, concluded the consultation process on January 20. So, the infrastructure for the increasing volumes of supplies from Azerbaijan and a number of North African countries, thanks to large EU funding, is planned to be upgraded by 2026, and not by 2027, as previously planned.
Meanwhile, Italy's gas imports from Azerbaijan totaled 8.21 bcm in 2022, which is an increase of 34.3 percent year-on-year.
Designed for the potential to supply over 20 bcm of gas, today, TAP, the European section of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), already ensures Italian energy security, covering over 10 percent of the country's gas demand, which is about 10 bcm.