Azerbaijan, Baku, March. 5 / Trend A.Badalova /
Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project is still at risk not to be chosen by the Shah Deniz consortium as a final option to transport Azerbaijani gas to Europe, New Europe reported with the reference to TAP Managing Director Kjetil Tungland.
"There is still risk, of course, that Shah Deniz might choose SEEP [South-East Europe Pipeline] or [the revised] Nabucco [West]," Tungland said.
Tungland said that such a scenario will be a tragedy not only for TAP, but also for Greece and Italy.
TAP is one of the Southern Gas Corridor projects, which is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into western Europe. Gas to be produced during the second stage of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development is considered as the main source for TAP.
Earlier this month Shah Deniz consortium excluded another project - 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 (10 billion cubic meters) under the Shah-Deniz-2 project to the European countries.
Tungland said that now that TAP was selected as a preferred pipeline to go to Italy the project expects full support from Athens and Rome.
He stressed that TAP is offering direct foreign investment of around 1.5 billion euros to Greece, which will not only directly benefit the country but will also demonstrate much-needed foreign investors' confidence.
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 TAP is about 800 kilometers. The initial pipeline capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic metres per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic metres per year.