Azernews.Az

Albanian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Water Administration approved the Environmental Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), TAP reported on Thursday.

According tio the report, the Environmental Permit has been published by Albania's National Licensing Centre.

The ESIA maps-out all possible environmental, cultural or socio-economic impacts of the pipeline and includes measures to avoid and mitigate any possible impacts the pipeline may have during and after construction.

TAP reported that the granting of the Permit takes the project a step closer to completion by specifying the construction and operational requirements that the management team must meet in order to fully comply with Albania's environmental legislation.

TAP project is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into Western Europe. Gas to be produced within the second phase of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development is considered as the main source for TAP.

TAP's initial pipeline capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, but is easily expandable to 20 billion cubic meters per year. TAP's shareholders are AXPO of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent).

The Albanian section of the pipeline will start at Bilisht Qendër at the Greek border, and will stretch some 209km to the coastal area north of Fier, where it will join the Adriatic. The Albanian offshore section will be 60km in length.

In case of choosing TAP as a final pipeline route to transport Azerbaijani gas to Europe, the construction of the pipeline will start in 2015. The final decision on the European pipeline is expected to be made by end of June 2013.