Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 15 / Trend A.Badalova /
The Trans Adriatic Pipeleine (TAP) considers an intergovernmental agreement on the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), which is expected to be signed between Azerbaijan and Turkey next week, as a step forward in realization of the Southern Gas Corridor.
"Any agreement between Azerbaijan and Turkey on transit through Turkey is another step forward in the realization of the Southern Gas Corridor," Lisa Givert, Head of Communications at TAP project told Trend.
TANAP is a proposed Azerbaijan-Turkish project which envisages a construction of a pipeline from the eastern border of Turkey to the country's western border. Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the consortium that will build the gas pipeline. The cost of TANAP will be set by SOCAR and may be close to the figure of $5 billion.
Earlier the Azerbaijani Energy Minister Natig Aliyev said Azerbaijan and Turkey are going to sign an intergovernmental agreement on TANAP next week.
The parties involved in TANAP project intend to resolve all issues on this gas pipeline in 2012. They also plan to commence construction immediately in order to complete it by late 2017. The initial capacity of the pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters. Some 6 billion cubic meters of the volume will be allocated to Turkey, while the rest will be transported to Europe.
"TAP fully supports the efforts of both governments in this respect as it also means that TAP is able to receive the necessary volumes for export to the European markets," Givert said.
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. 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 initial pipeline capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic metres per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic metres per year.
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 announced TAP a priority route for export of the Azerbaijani gas to Italy.