Azernews.Az

By Gulgiz Dadashova

The Georgian government has reached an agreement with the Shah Deniz consortium on expansion of a gas pipeline to bring gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea to Europe through Georgia.

Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili made the remark at a press conference on July 3, Trend news agency reported.

Ivanishvili said that $2 billion will be spent for the operations on expansion of the South Caucasus Pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum) in Georgia, while the cheap gas volume received from Azerbaijan will be tripled. Many jobs will be created within the construction, he added.

Earlier, it was reported that a new infrastructure will be constructed and the existing South Caucasus gas pipeline will be expanded to supply Azerbaijani gas to Europe.

It is assumed that a parallel gas pipeline will be built in Azerbaijan to increase its capacity to supply an additional 16 billion cubic meters of gas, while the capacity of pumping stations will be significantly increased in Georgia.

The total cost of the project of supplying Azerbaijani gas from Shah Deniz to Europe is estimated at more than $40 billion. Some $25 billion is envisaged for conducting offshore operations on the Shah Deniz project and $8-9 billion for the construction of the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP). The funds are also required to expand the South Caucasus gas pipeline.

The funds will be invested in the Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline project which was chosen last week as the gas supply route to Europe.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline is to be expanded with the increased capacity amounting to 25 billion cubic meters of gas per year after 2017.

In later stages the volume of gas to be transported via this route will be increased up to 45 billion cubic meters.

In 2012, daily output capacity of the pipeline reached 11.1 million cubic meters of gas or 68,000 barrels in oil equivalent.

The length of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum Gas Pipeline exceeds 700 kilometers. It transports the gas produced in the Shah Deniz gas condensate field located in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. Gas is supplied to Georgia and Turkey. Azerbaijan appears as a buyer of gas as well.