Azernews.Az

BAKU - The Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline is the most beneficial project for exporting Azerbaijani natural gas to Europe, Greek natural gas company DEPA’s chief executive has said.

Harry Sachinis told a news conference in Baku Friday that the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) meets Azerbaijan’s strategic interests and is essentially ready for operation.

"By doing a little work, it is possible to bring the capacity of the pipeline to 24 billion cubic meters a year," Sachinis said.

"Throughout capacity of the pipeline between Greece and Italy could be increased to 16bn cubic meters from the current 12bn cubic meters, without incurring additional expenses. At the same time, the capacity of the Greece-Bulgaria pipeline could be raised to 8bn cubic meters from 3bn cubic meters. We can complete these operations by 2017. In other words, by the time the second stage of the Shahdaniz project [on developing Azerbaijan’s biggest gas field in the Caspian Sea] begins, a pipeline will be available to transport this gas to Europe."

Sachinis said ITGI could transport all of Shahdaniz gas. He said that other gas pipelines that are part of the Southern Corridor, including Nabucco, could be built when gas from other sources such as Turkmenistan and Iraq becomes available.

"ITGI is the most reliable pipeline for transporting gas in terms of security," the DEPA CEO added.

Sachinis noted that ITGI could be easily linked both to existing pipelines and gas lines to be built in the future, therefore, it could pump gas essentially to any country in Europe.

"Transporting gas via this pipeline could turn Azerbaijan into a key player in the European gas market," he added.

The Southern Corridor is a priority EU energy project diversifying supply routes and sources and increasing European energy security. Besides ITGI, it includes the Nabucco gas pipeline, Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and White Stream.