Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 2 /Trend A. Akhundov/
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) is planning to settle organisational issues for the Trans Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP) with the Turkish side by the end of the month.This was reported to Trend by a high ranking SOCAR representative on Monday.
"We are developing this project with our Turkish partners. The agreement of organisers and the charter of the future joint project are currently being discussed," the source noted.
A 20 per cent share of TANAP currently belongs to Turkish BOTAS while SOCAR holds an 80 per cent share. Previously, SOCAR announced that it welcomed three more companies to this project, namely BP, Statoil and Total.
"We consider that it's too early to discuss the details with these companies, as they could have interests different from ours in this project. The invitation of new companies to participation in the project is expected after settling the organisational issues with the Turkish party. I suppose we are going to settle the matter by the end of this month," the source stated.
According to the head of company Rovnag Abdullayev, SOCAR is going to retain 51 per cent of its share in TANAP. He added that Turkey will hold 20 per cent and 29 per cent is going to be distributed among new shareholders.
The TANAP project envisages construction of the pipeline from the eastern border of Turkey to the country's western border to supply gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas field to Europe through Turkey.
On June, 26 Azerbaijan and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement on the TANAP implementation.
The initial capacity of the pipeline is expected to reach 16 billion cubic meters a year. About six billion cubic meters will be delivered to Turkey and the rest to Europe.