Azerbaijan and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement on implementation of Trans-Anatolian (TANAP) gas pipeline. The document was signed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In December 2011, Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the consortium that will build a gas pipeline to supply gas from Shah Deniz gas field to Europe through Turkey. BOTAS has a 20 per cent stake in TANAP, while SOCAR holds 80 per cent in the project. The initial capacity of the pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters. Some 6 billion cubic meters of the volume will be supplied to Turkey, while the rest will be transported to Europe.
The intergovernmental agreement on Trans-Anatolian (TANAP) gas pipeline project signed between Azerbaijan and Turkey will contribute to ensuring the global energy security, Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Social and Political Department Chief Ali Hasanov said.
He said TANAP project has three important features
"First of all, this project aims to improve the economic component in implementing the energy security projects, further strengthening the partnership and close economic rapprochement between Turkey and Azerbaijan which are two brotherly and friendly countries," he added.
"Second, the project is designed to supply large gas reserves extracted in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea to the European market via Turkey," he said. "The volume of these reserves is not small. Today, the volume of proven gas reserves in Azerbaijan hit 2.6 trillion cubic meters. The project also involves first hand gas sale and directing the profit to develop Azerbaijan and Turkey, respectively."
"Third, TANAP will contribute to the world energy security in the third millennium, the expansion of cooperation in the South Caucasus, including Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and other Caspian countries, diversification of the world's gas export routes, increasing the liquefied gas supply," he added.