Azerbaijan, Baku, December 12 / Trend , A.Badalova /
The ITGI pipeline (Turkey-Greece-Italy) is the only project that can be built by 2015 - just in time, when it will be ready to export Azerbaijani gas from the second phase of development of Shah Deniz field," said project manager Elio Ruggeri.
"The project offers the lowest cost of transportation to the European market, and it means the highest price for Azerbaijani gas," Ruggeri said in an interview with Nefte Compass.
According to him, in 2010, no gas (from the Caspian region), except Azerbaijan, will be ready to conclude export contracts.
Ruggeri said that the tariffs for transporting thousand cubic meters of gas through the ITGI from the wellhead to the main industrial market in Italy will be from 10 to 15 percent lower than the Nabucco pipeline.
In November, one of the participants to the Nabucco gas pipeline project, Germany company RWE published a report saying that the cost of transporting thousand cubic meters of gas from the wellhead of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field to market through the Nabucco gas pipeline is 77 euros.
According to Ruggeri, low tariffs for transportation via ITGI will continue even in the case of transportation of seven billion cubic meters of gas.
"We believe that if the Turkmen or Iraqi gas is transported via the Nabucco pipeline, it will be in such volume that would be quite sufficient for the project, and Azerbaijani gas even will not be in need. Thus, we believe that there is a very simple decision to open Southern Corridor - and it is to deliver Azerbaijani gas to ITGI project," said Ruggeri.
ITGI transport corridor which will transport Azerbaijani gas to Greece and Italy includes updated Turkish pipeline infrastructure and also ITG projects (Turkey-Greece junction pipeline) and IGI. Greece-Italy junction pipeline is a missing link of Turkey-Greece-Italy transport corridor which enables to transport gas from the Caspian region and Middle East to Italy and West Europe via Turkey and Greece. The designed carrying capacity of ITGI is 12bln cu m per year.
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