Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 21 / Trend A. Badalova /
Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project, designed to transport Azerbaijani gas through Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further to Western Europe, is open to new shareholders, the project official representative told Trend on Tuesday.
"TAP has always been open to other shareholders joining the project," Lisa Givert, Head of Communications at TAP project, said.
With regard to DEPA's possible joining TAP as a new shareholder, Lisa refrain from commenting on market rumour and speculation.
Today Bloomberg reported with the reference to the Greek newspaper Imerisia, citing unidentified sources in the Greek Energy Ministry, that the Greece's gas company DEPA may buy a stake of as much as 15 percent in the TAP venture. At present, DEPA is one of the developers of the ITGI project.
In October, 2011 TAP along with Nabucco and ITGI projects submitted their final proposals to the Azerbaijani side.
Earlier this week Shah Deniz consortium excluded ITGI from the list of those being considered to export Azerbaijani gas to the European countries, and made TAP a priority route for export of Azerbaijani gas to Italy.
The decision was made in accordance with the previously announced criteria for the export of gas from the second phase of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development to the European countries. Under the Shah-Deniz-2 project, Azerbaijan plans to transport gas to Europe in the volume of 10 billion cubic meters.
TAP's shareholders are EGL of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent).
The total length of the pipeline is about 800 kilometers. The initial pipeline capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic meters per year.