BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 25. The construction of the Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP) is expected to be completed by 2028, Croatian transmission system operator Plinacro told Argus, Trend reports.
Previously, IAP was scheduled to be completed by 2025.
In late December, Montenegro's competition authority proposed allocating €20,000 to system operator Montenegro Bonus to establish an IAP joint venture with counterparts Plinacro, BH Gas in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albgaz in Albania. But no progress on IAP seems to have been made since then.
Ionian Adriatic Pipeline can be connected to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to transport gas to many countries in South-East Europe.
The pipeline with total length of 516 kilometers will stretch from Albania through Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, to split in Croatia.
The capacity of the pipeline will amount to five billion cubic meters of gas per year.
TAP has already signed memorandums of understanding and cooperation with the developers of this project, in particular with companies of Plinacro (Croatia), BH-Gas (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Geoplin Plinovodi (Slovenia), as well as with the governments of Montenegro and Albania.
There has been created a TAP-IAP joint working group that gathers regularly to synchronize the timing of both pipeline projects and coordinate the technical issues of interconnection.
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