Turkey welcomes dividing Azerbaijan’s share in TANAP
Turkey welcomes dividing some of Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR's share in the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline project (TANAP) between BP, Statoil and Total, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Thursday, the Anadolu news agency reported.
Yildiz said that foreign companies' participation in implementing TANAP project helps to attract more foreign investments.
The TANAP project envisages the construction of a gas pipeline from Turkey's eastern border to the western border to transport gas from Azerbaijan's offshore Shah Deniz field to Europe through Turkey.
SOCAR partners on the project of developing the Shah Deniz field have voiced their preliminary intentions to acquire a stake in the TANAP project, SOCAR head Rovnag Abdullayev told media on Wednesday.
He said the preliminary data is not official yet, but according to them, the partners intend to distribute a 29 per cent share in TANAP as follows: Statoil and BP - 12 per cent, Total - five per cent.
At present, Turkish BOTAS owns a 20 per cent share in TANAP, while SOCAR owns an 80 per cent stake.
SOCAR intends to retain 51 per cent of its share in TANAP. Turkey will own 20 per cent of the equity.
The initial capacity of the pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters. Some six billion cubic meters of the volume will be supplied to Turkey, while the rest will be transported to Europe.
On June 26, Azerbaijan and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement on TANAP's implementation.