Over a dozen options evaluated for TAP landfall in Italy
By Trend
Fourteen different options have been evaluated for the landfall
of Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project in Italy, said the
country’s Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti, Italian media
reported.
As for the protests held in Italy’s Puglia region due to the
removal of olive trees as part of construction of the pipeline, the
minister expressed confidence that common sense will prevail in the
end.
The minister recalled that once the construction work is completed,
these olive trees will be replanted.
Earlier, Italian Council of State gave green light to construction
of TAP in the country, rejecting appeals from the Puglia regional
government.
The Council of State ruled that the TAP project had provided
sufficient details on the environmental impact of the project.
To avoid any impact on the San Foca beach in Italy, TAP is building
a 1.5km micro-tunnel. This state-of-the-art engineering minimizes
environmental impact and renders the pipeline invisible.
To start building the micro-tunnel – at a site approximately 800m
inland from the beach – TAP, as a first step, needs to move and
store 231 olive trees, which will later be replanted at the same
location.
To enable building the micro-tunnel, TAP will move 211 olive trees
as a first step. As a second step, TAP will then move and store an
additional approximately 2,000 olive trees along the pipeline’s 8km
route, from the micro-tunnel exit to the Pipeline Receiving
Terminal (PRT).
Once the pipeline construction activities are completed in 2019,
the olive trees will be brought back and planted in their original
perimeter.
TAP is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor which is one of the
priority energy projects for the European Union.
TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of
development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to
the EU countries.
The pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas
Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece,
Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's
south.
TAP will be 878 kilometers in length (Greece 550 km, Albania 215
km, Adriatic Sea 105 km, and Italy 8 km). Its highest point will be
1,800 meters in Albania’s mountains, while its lowest point will be
820 meters beneath the sea.
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