TANAP to be ready for gas supplies to Europe in July
By Leman Mammadova
Head of Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) consortium Saltuk Duzyol met with members of the press at the TANAP MS4 measuring station in İpsala and made evaluations on the project.
Duzyol noted that TANAP continued its business operations with 190 staff. Duzyol recalled that they had calculated an investment cost of $ 11.77 billion at the beginning of the project, but this was reduced to about $ 7 billion with a savings of about 41 percent.
He noted that TANAP started gas deliveries to Turkey after the launch of Phase 0 and the test supplies as part of the Phase 1 of TANAP will begin from April 15, 2019.
He added that the general progress rate at TANAP was 98 percent at the end of February. “If everything goes in accordance with the schedule, TANAP is expected to start gas supplies to Europe on July 1”, he noted.
Further, he said that Turkey has received a total of 1.25 billion cubic meters of natural gas from June 30, 2018 to Feb.28, 2019 via TANAP. This figure will rise to 2 billion cubic meters by late June 2019 and 4 billion cubic meters by end-2019, added Duzyol.
He went on to add that TANAP’s annual capacity is 16 billion cubic meters of gas with the possibility of expanding to 31 billion cubic meters.
It will be possible to increase TANAP’s capacity initially to 24 billion cubic meters and subsequently, to 31 billion cubic meters of gas by building additional compressor stations.
Duzyol stressed that Turkey TANAP will become an important actor due to the TANAP. “Beyond being a corridor, an important step will be taken to become the energy hub,” he said.
TANAP, with a total length of 850 kilometers, will carry 16 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually. 6 billion cubic meters of the amount will be used to meet Turkey's demands, while the remaining 10 billion cubic meters will be sent to Europe.
TANAP, along with TAP, is a part of Southern Gas Corridor project that envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz-2 gas field to European markets.
TANAP gas pipeline was put into operation on June 12 in Eskisehir, Turkey. The first gas transportation to Turkey started on 30 June.
So far, TANAP has transported about 800 million cubic meters of Shah Deniz gas to Turkey.
TANAP will transport 2 billion cubic meters in 2019 to Turkey, 4 billion cubic meters in 2020, and 6 billion cubic meters of natural gas will be transported in 2021.
The share distribution of TANAP shareholders is as follows: Southern Gas Corridor CJSC - 51 percent, SOCAR Turkey Enerji - 7 percent, Botas - 30 percent, BP - 12 percent.
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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888
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