Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 3
By Ilkin Shafiyev - Trend:
A company for the implementation of the Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP) project, which envisages the supply of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, may be created in October-November 2018, CEO of SOCAR Balkans Murad Heydarov told Trend Oct. 3.
“In accordance with the document that was adopted in Baku February this year at the fourth ministerial meeting on the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project, the IAP member countries decided to create a project company,” said Heydarov. “At this stage, we don’t consider our participation as a founder, providing only technical consultations, so the IAP member countries are directly involved in this task.”
He added that in October-November, a meeting of the project management committee will be held, where a decision will be made on the establishment of a project company.
“We hope that the project company will be created by the end of the year,” Heydarov said. “We will consider cooperation with the company. In general, we consider IAP as one of the important projects in the concept of expanding the SGC.”
IAP is a proposed natural gas pipeline in Southeastern Europe that will stretch from Albania through Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, to Split in Croatia. It will be connected with the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) – an integral part of SGC. The capacity of the pipeline will amount to five billion cubic meters of gas per year.
A ceremony to launch the first stage of SGC was held in Baku on May 29.
The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline.
The SGC, which costs more than $40 billion, is one of the priority projects for the EU and provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe.
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