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Azerbaijan is ready to sell stake in TAP to Greece

Oil&Gas Materials 16 February 2015 20:30 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 16

By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:

SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) is ready to sell some stake in the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to the Greek side, SOCAR's senior representative told reporters Feb. 16.
SOCAR is open to such proposal, the statement says.

"If Greece wants to buy any share, we are ready to sell it," the statement says. "But the main requirement for the Greek side is that it must settle the account on time. If there is such a company, SOCAR is ready to give it some share by reselling it. We want this pipeline to be more "Greek". Our wishes coincide. Another thing is to find a solvent company not to delay the construction of the pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor project implementation."

He said that the Azerbaijani and Greek sides maintain regular contacts.

"We have contacts with the new Greek government, the ministry, companies," the statement says. "And if there is any possibility to contribute for Greece's economy to be developed more intensively through this project, we are ready to use it."

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline is part of the Southern Gas Corridor.

The TAP project was selected by the consortium of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development as the transportation route to the European markets.

The approximately 870 km long pipeline will connect with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) near the Turkish-Greek border at Kipoi, cross Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.

TAP's shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Statoil (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagás (16 percent) and Axpo (five percent).

Construction of TAP is planned to begin in 2016.

The initial capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, but it can easily be expanded to 20 billion cubic meters per year as the new volumes of gas come on stream.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. This project is aimed at diversification of routes and sources of energy supply and thereby increase EU's energy security.

It envisages the delivery of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to Europe.

As part of the second stage of the field's development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans Anatolian (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic (TAP) gas pipelines.

The first gas as part of the "Shah Deniz-2" project will be supplied to Turkey in 2018, and to Europe in 2019.

Edited by CN

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follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov

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