TAP crosses Albania’s rocky mountains
By Trend
The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, has crossed the rocky mountains of Albania, TAP Albania manager Malfor Nuri said, Trend reports.
“We are proud to have risen to this challenge and delivered a world-class pipeline crossing mountains of over 2,000 meters above sea level,” Nuri told Reuters, adding that TAP is the biggest foreign investment in Albania.
Reportedly, out of TAP’s total cost of 4.5 billion euros ($5.04 billion), the section across Albania has cost a third of that due to the challenging terrain.
Most of the pipe laying has now been done in Greece and Albania. Apart from the terrain, the developers had to deal with 100 times more owners in Albania than they would have to other European countries and double the amount of landowners it had to deal with in Greece, representatives of TAP AG in Albania said.
TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.
Connecting with the Trans Anatolian 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.
The project is currently in its construction phase, which started in 2016.
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), Enagás (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).
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