Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 6 / Trend A.Badalova/
Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) begins its Land Easement and Acquisition (LEA) activities for the 870 km long pipeline in Albania, Greece and Italy, TAP reported on Friday.
"TAP has authorized its contractors to start surveys for collecting detailed information on the landowners living along the pipeline corridor to complement the existing cadastral data," the report said.
The goal is to identify rightful land owners, establish property boundaries and evaluate the affected properties. TAP's LEA process is based on acquiring access rights to land, in order to establish access for the pipeline.
According to the report, TAP will require temporary access to land for the construction strip where the pipeline will be buried and permanent access to land for installations such as compressor stations, block valve stations, etc. Following construction, TAP will also require land easements for the pipeline corridor and safety zones.
TAP has hired Royal HaskoningDHV (RHDHV) as its contractor for LEA activities. RHDHV is an international engineering and project management service provider and consultancy, based in the Netherlands.
In 2014 TAP plans to enter into agreements with landowners regulating how the access to land can be granted. Royal HaskoningDHV will be contacting all affected landowners in the next months.
TAP is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and then to Western Europe. The gas which will be produced in the second phase of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development, is considered as the main source of the project.
The Shah Deniz Consortium announced its choice of the TAP project in late June as a gas transportation route to European markets.
The initial capacity of the TAP pipeline will be 10 billion cubic meters per year with the possibility of expanding to 20 billion cubic meters per year. TAP shareholders are BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Statoil (20 percent), Fluxys (16 percent), Total (10 percent), E.ON (9 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).