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By Trend

No mention on the expansion of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) was made during the meeting with the head of Russia’s Gazprom company, an official spokesman of Italy’s Snam company, which is a shareholder of TAP, told Trend June 6.

Earlier, Kommersant newspaper reported citing its sources that during the meeting with Gazprom’s CEO Alexey Miller on June 1, head of Snam Marco Alvera offered expanding TAP instead of using Poseidon pipeline for Russian gas to be delivered to Europe via the second line of the Turkish Stream pipeline.

“In this view, it is important to remind that Snam is a shareholder of TAP and is not entitled to make any offer on this and other topics of possible interest and cooperation with third parties,” said the spokesman.

TAP is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union. The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.

The pipeline will connect 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 kilometers, Albania 215 kilometers, Adriatic Sea 105 kilometers, and Italy 8 kilometers).

TAP’s shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagás (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

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