Azernews.Az

By Gulgiz Dadashova

The process of expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline, a section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) pipeline, which will allow Azerbaijan to transport extra volumes of gas produced from its giant Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea, is due to be completed in 2018.

The project's environmental and social manager, Paul Sutherland, made the announcement on Monday during a public hearing on the draft report on the environmental and social impact of the gas pipeline expansion project.

The South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) is a natural gas pipeline from the Shah Deniz gas field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea to Turkey. First deliveries through the pipeline commenced on September 30, 2006. Deliveries of gas from the Shah Deniz field started on December 15 that year.

In January, BP's Shah Deniz development Vice President Al Cook said Azerbaijan and BP have agreed to expand a part of the SCP pipeline in late 2012.

Then the parties signed a framework agreement for the Stage 2 development of Shah Deniz and the SCP expansion.

In the expanded part of the SCP the pumping of over 25 billion cubic meters of gas per year will be controlled by SOCAR. The volume of extra gas produced by the Shah Deniz consortium will also be monitored by SOCAR.

According to Sutherland, the construction work within the gas pipeline expansion project is scheduled to begin in mid-2014 and be completed in 2018, which will ensure the transportation of Azerbaijani gas to European customers from the Shah Deniz field via Turkey.

The expansion will be achieved through the construction of a parallel 1,422-millimeter pipeline, which will begin on 56 km of the existing pipeline.

The length of the new pipe route will be 387 kilometers. The laying of a gas pipeline parallel to the SCP will allow transporting an additional 16 billion cubic meters of gas annually.

The consortium developing the Shah Deniz gas condensate field is considering TAP and Nabucco West pipelines as options for gas transportation to Europe. Both are part of the Southern Gas Corridor, a major energy project for the EU seeking to diversify routes and sources of supply. A final decision on the pipeline route is due to be made in June 2013.

The TAP project 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 capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, but it is easily expandable to 20 billion cubic meters.

Nabucco West is a short-cut version of the Nabucco project, which envisages construction of a pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. Designated capacity of the project is up to 31 billion cubic meters per year.

First gas within Shah Deniz-2 is expected to be produced in 2018.

Two offshore platforms and 20 subsea wells will be installed for the production of an additional 16 billion cubic meters of gas under the Shah Deniz-2 project. Peak production is projected at 9 billion cubic meters during the first stage of development. According to forecasts, gas production can be increased to 24 billion cubic meters a year in the second stage of development.

Reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The contract to develop the offshore field was signed in June 1996. Shareholders of the project are: BP (operator) and Statoil with 25.5 percent each, NICO, Total, Lukoil and SOCAR with 10 percent each, and TPAO with 9 percent.