SOCAR: No Plan B for TAP
By Sara Israfilbayova
There is no Plan B for the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project that envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe.
Deputy Vice-President of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR for investments and marketing Vitaliy Baylarbayov made the remarks during the Atlantic Council webcast briefing from Washington.
Baylarbayov and Emily Olson, BP vice president responsible for external affairs for the Southern Gas Corridor, expressed confidence that Italy will see TAP to be completed on time, S&P Global Platts reported.
“Italy needs this gas. Gas demand in Italy is growing and volumes of imports are growing,” noted Baylarbayov asked whether there is a back-up plan if Rome vetoes TAP’s landfall in Italy.
The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union, which aims to diversify routes and sources of energy supplies and thereby improve the energy security of the EU.
The Southern Gas Corridor is intended to deliver gas from the Azerbaijani gas condensate field Shah Deniz to Europe.
Gas as part of the second stage of the field development will be exported to Turkey and the European markets through the expansion of the South Caucasus gas pipeline and the construction of the TANAP and TAP gas pipelines.
The first gas within the Shah Deniz-2 project will be delivered to Turkey in 2018, and to Europe in 2019.
The cost of the Southern Gas Corridor project is estimated at $41.5 billion.
TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, has already attracted 1.5 billion euros from the European Investment Bank (EIB), which approved the loan in early February 2018.
Connecting with the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network.
Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe.
TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).
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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is
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