Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 6 / Trend A.Badalova/
ITGI (Turkey-Greece-Italy gas pipeline) project will allow Greece to avoid disruptions, which the country is currently facing due to weather conditions, ITGI quotes the Chairman of IGI Poseidon and Chairman and CEO of DEPA, the Public Gas Corporation of Greece Harry Sachinis, as saying.
"The current shortages on gas deliveries are not happening for the first time. We are now facing disruptions in deliveries because of the weather conditions and the increase of demand in neighboring countries," Sachinis said.
He believes that the ITGI project allows for what is known as Reverse Gas Flow - the possibility for reversing the flux of gas, thus allowing for gas from North Africa to flow to Italy and from there to South Eastern Europe.
Greece is one of the European countries suffered from the gas shortage over long-term periods last month. The shortage was associated with Russia's increased domestic demand due to cold weather, and therefore supplies to the European countries were decreased.
Greece is currently the only European country without a connection to the European grid, leaving it isolated and vulnerable to situations of disruption of supply.
The opening of the Southern Corridor and specifically the ITGI project will guarantee security of supply and effective interconnection between European countries, the ITGI statement said.
ITGI is one of the proposed projects within the Southern gas Corridor, which involves gas supplies from the Caspian region and the Middle East to the EU countries. The project includes a modernised Turkish pipeline infrastructure, as well as an Interconnector Turkey-Greece (ITG projects) and an Italy-Greece interconnector (IGI). The project shareholders are the Greek company DEPA and Italy's Edison. The total estimated project cost is 1.5 to 2 billion euros.
The initial planned capacity of the ITGI pipeline will hit 10 billion cubic metres per year. One billion cubic metres will be transported to Bulgaria, one billion cubic metres to Greece, while the remaining eight billion cubic metres will go to Italy.
The Edison and Depa companies established IGI Poseidon SA to develop and construct the Greece-Italy pipeline known as Poseidon.
Gas, which will be produced within the second phase of Shah-Deniz field development is regarded as the main source for the project. ITGI along the other pipeline projects within the Southern Gas Corridor have submitted final proposals to the Azerbaijani side, which will make its decision on preferable transportation route in the first quarter of 2012.