Azerbaijan , Baku, Oct. 5 /Trend, A.Badalova/
The ITGI system is good for Azerbaijan as it brings their gas to market in the quickest possible time, Greek Public Natural Gas company's (DEPA) report said. DEPA is one of the shareholders ITGI project.
According to Harry Sachinis, Chairman and CEO of DEPA, ITGI project is also good for Europe as it will accelerate the development of the Southern Gas Corridor, increasing European energy security by providing alternative sources of imported gas, in the shortest timeframe.
"The ITGI system will deliver Azeri gas to Europe in the shortest possible time and at the lowest cost," he said.
ITGI involves gas supplies from the Caspian region and the Middle East to the EU countries. It includes updated Turkish pipeline infrastructure and also ITG projects such as the Turkey-Greece junction pipeline and IGI. Its planned capacity is 11.8 billion cubic meters per year.
Sachinis said that from a commercial standpoint, the project has many prospective buyers lined up to buy capacity rights, providing a ready-made customer base.
According to Sachinis, upstream and downstream transit rights have been secured according to Greek and Italian regulatory regimes and there has been gained Third Party Access exemption for 8 bcma, from the Greek and Italian Authorities as well as the EU.
Last week all three pipeline projects (Nabucco, ITGI and TAP), aimed at transporting Azerbaijani gas to Europe under the second phase of the project on development of the Shah Deniz gas-condensate field submitted final proposals to the Azerbaijani side.
The Shah Deniz-2 consortium will review proposals submitted in accordance with previously announced criteria, including commercial attractiveness, ability for project realization from the technical and financial point of view, engineering and design work, management, coordination and transparency, the possibility of a phased scale-up and other criteria.
The Azerbaijani side is going to deliver 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Europe under the Shah Deniz-2 project through the chosen pipeline.