Azerbaijan, Baku, June 28 / Trend, S. Aliyev /
The decision of the consortium developing the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field on a gas transit route to Europe made a great contribution to the development of the Southern Gas Corridor project, Charge D`Affaires of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Toralf Pilz told journalists today.
On Friday, the consortium on Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development announced the selection of TAP as the transit route for its gas to European markets.
"This decision is of great significance to the development of the Southern Gas Corridor project," Pilz said.
He also stressed the importance of Caspian gas supplies via the chosen route to Southern and Eastern Europe.
According to him, this choice will be supported by a final investment decision on the Shah Deniz-2 project which will be made by the end of the year.
The TAP project is designed to transport gas from the Caspian via Greece and Albania across the Adriatic Sea to the south of Italy and further to Western Europe.
Gas extracted during the second phase of development of the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field is considered to be the pipeline's main source of gas.
TAP's initial pipeline capacity will be 10 billion cubic metres per year, but it is easily expandable to 20 billion cubic metres per year. TAP's shareholders are AXPO of Switzerland (42.5 per cent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 per cent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 per cent).
Construction of TAP is expected to start in 2015.
Nabucco West was the second pipeline, which competed for the transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe.