Azernews.Az

The main partners of the Shah Deniz project, including BP, aim to participate in construction of each section of a pipeline transporting gas to European markets, BP Azerbaijan told Trend news agency on Thursday.

"That includes the South Caucasus Pipeline, Tanap and TAP/ Nabucco West," the company said.

This week BP, SOCAR and Total signed an agreement with the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project to provide funding in the short term.

"This will allow TAP to progress further until the final decision on the Shah Deniz export route is made in mid-2013," BP Azerbaijan said.

The Funding Agreement also includes an option for the Shah Deniz shareholders to take up to 50 percent equity in TAP.

In February Shah Deniz consortium made TAP a priority route for exporting Azerbaijani gas to Italy. Later, in June, the consortium chose Nabucco West as the single pipeline option for the potential export of Shah Deniz Stage 2 gas to Central Europe. The final decision on a pipeline route will be made by the Shah Deniz consortium in 2013.

TAP is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into Western Europe. TAP's initial pipeline capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic meters per year. TAP's shareholders are EGL of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent).

Nabucco West is a short-cut version of Nabucco project, which envisages construction of a pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. The project's current shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV, German RWE and Hungary's FGSZ.