Azernews.Az

Gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field can be transported to Turkey's western borders via the Trans-Anatolian natural gas pipeline (TANAP), and then be delivered to the European markets via a new version of Nabucco pipeline, Turkish energy minister Taner Yildiz said in an interview broadcast live on Turkey's CNBC-E, Platts reported on Tuesday.

"I don't think there is any need for the Nabucco consortium to come up with a new proposal in order to link up with TANAP," Yildiz said, adding that that a possible tie-up between the two projects is on the agenda and is already being discussed.

TANAP is a proposed Azerbaijan-Turkish project which envisages a construction of a pipeline from the eastern border of Turkey to the country's western border. Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the consortium that will build the gas pipeline.

The cost of TANAP will be set by SOCAR and may be close to the figure of $5 billion.

Yildiz said that the preparations for TANAP will be ready by April. He added that in his view TANAP will greatly simplify the process of exporting Shah Deniz gas to Europe.

Nabucco project's new version envisages the construction of the pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to the Austrian Baumgarten. The original concept of Nabucco project envisaged the construction of the pipeline from the Georgian-Turkish and Iraqi-Turkish borders to Baumgarten. The pipeline was expected to run through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria over a distance of 3,900 kilometres.

The construction of Nabucco pipeline with maximum capacity of 31 billion cubic meters is planned to start in 2013 and its first supplies are scheduled for 2017.