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Why TAP beneficial for land owners?

Oil&Gas Materials 18 April 2018 12:39 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, April 18

By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:

TAP is committed to ensuring that land owners and users along the pipeline corridor who are affected by the project are treated with respect and compensated fairly, Lisa Givert, TAP Head of Communications, told Trend.

“TAP’s Land Easement and Acquisition (LEA) program is transparent, participatory, well documented. TAP has gone to great lengths to design ‐and modify‐ the project to ensure that all physical displacement of residential properties is avoided; economic displacement is minimized and mitigated, and to compensate for all project‐affected land, crops and structures at full replacement value,” she said.

Givert pointed out that TAP’s LEA program has been very positively received.

“Over 99 percent of the owners have expressed their willingness to enter into voluntary agreement with TAP by signing so-called LoIs (Letters of Intent),” she said.

For the owners of more than five thousand project-affected land parcels in Greece and Albania who lacked legally recognized land title documentation for their parcels at the beginning of the project, TAP provided relevant legal and administrative support to expedite the process of recognition of beneficiaries for the compensation of their respective affected parcels, said TAP Head of Communications.

She went on to add that in Albania, TAP has provided significant support to improve and update their cadastral records.

“Land owners near to but not directly affected by the project in Albania have also benefited from TAPs Land Titling and Registration Support program. TAP compensates for project-affected land, crops and structures based on full replacement value,” said Givert. “This process is in line with EBRD Performance Requirements and industry best practice. TAP provides compensation for temporary use of land, for permanent easement rights as well as for building restrictions, for loss of building structures, trees and crops as relevantly applicable.”

She noted that TAP is committed to ensuring that land owners and users along the pipeline corridor who are affected by the project are treated with respect and compensated fairly.

“In line with this approach, a robust and transparent methodology has been developed to calculate compensation values, based on the “full market value” and associated costs as described in our livelihood restoration plans which are available on the TAP website. TAP has also involved local real estate agencies and agronomists in the process to validate the land and crop replacement values,” said TAP Head of Communications.

Additionally, TAP made the established compensation rates public, reviewing them both with local and regional government authorities as well as project-affected people, according to Givert.

“To further ensure that people are able to restore and where possible improve their livelihoods, TAP has developed and is implementing the Livelihood Assistance and Transitional Support (LATS) programme described in more detail below,” she said.

Givert went on to add that TAP also offers all project-affected people the opportunity to participate in financial management workshops for advice on how best to leverage the cash compensation they have received.

“Affected people in agro-businesses can also receive technical support in developing marketing/business plans. All affected land owners/users are entitled to high quality fertilizer for the land area affected by the project, and for perennial tree growers. In addition to compensation for affected trees and the timber from those removed, they are also receiving replacement tree seedlings from certified local nurseries,” she said.

Additionally, communities along the pipeline route benefit from TAP’s social and environmental investment (SEI) program, said Givert.

“We are investing over €55 million in projects across Greece, Albania and Italy. These include: approximately 1 million euros for educational and biotechnological activities aiming to support the cultivation, marketing, and sale of local agri-food products and forest management studies, to name just a few,” she noted. “ More than 175km access roads and 40 bridges which TAP rehabilitates in Albania also benefit the farmers living along TAP’s route, enabling safer access to their land plots. Finally, many local businesses have become involved in the project as adjacent businesses, including accommodation, transport, catering, etc.”

TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.

Connecting with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network.

The project is currently in its construction phase, which started in 2016.

Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagás (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

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