Azerbaijan, Baku, September 19 /Trend, E.Ismaylov/
Azerbaijan will act as a reliable and a major supplier of gas to the world market for more than 100 years, the Minister of Industry and Energy of Azerbaijan Natig Aliyev said in his article published in Respublika newspaper on Thursday.
As the article said, in the delivery of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, it was decided to build a Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP), which will provide for the transportation of gas through Turkey to European.
In turn, for entering the European market in June, a consortium for the development of the Shah Deniz gas condensate field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea chose the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) as the gas supply route to Europe.
As the Minister said, the diversification policy in the energy sphere implemented by Azerbaijan generally brings qualitatively new changes in the global fuel market.
"At the same time, these factors create a basis to turn our country into a major and reliable supplier of gas to the world market," Aliyev stressed.
The TANAP project envisages transporting gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field to Europe through Turkey. The initial capacity of the pipeline is expected to reach 16 billion cubic meters per year. About six billion cubic meters of gas will be supplied to Turkey and the rest to Europe.
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 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 AXPO (42.5 per cent), Statoil (42.5 per cent) and E.ON Ruhrgas (15 per cent).