Azernews.Az

By Gulgiz Dadashova

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which will transport natural gas from Azerbaijan to South Italy and Western Europe through Greece, Albania, and the Adriatic Sea, announced that Land Easement and Acquisition (LEA) activities launched for the 870 km long pipeline in Albania, Greece and Italy.

According to the report, TAP has authorized its contractors to start surveys for collecting detailed information on the landowners living along the pipeline corridor to complement the existing cadastral data.

TAP's Land Easement and Acquisition Manager Albert Haak said that TAP's LEA activities will be conducted in a very transparent manner and in accordance to the highest international standards.

"TAP is committed to an open dialogue and building trustful and lasting relationships with the communities living along the future pipeline route," he said.

The goal is to identify rightful land owners, establish property boundaries and evaluate the affected properties. TAP's LEA process is based on acquiring access rights to land, in order to establish access for the pipeline.

TAP will require temporary access to land for the construction strip where the pipeline will be buried and permanent access to land for installations such as compressor stations, block valve stations, etc. Following construction, TAP will also require land easements for the pipeline corridor and safety zones.

TAP is carrying out its activities in accordance with the international standards of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to ensure that all affected people living along the pipeline corridor are compensated fairly and transparently.

Royal HaskoningDHV (RHDHV) was hired as contractor for LEA activities. RHDHV is an international engineering and project management service provider and consultancy, based in the Netherlands.

In 2014 TAP plans to enter into agreements with landowners regulating how the access to land can be granted. Royal HaskoningDHV will be contacting all affected landowners in the next months; it will mobilise a team of 200 staff members t o carry out LEA activities in Greece, Albania and Italy.

Senior Project Manager for Royal HaskoningDHV Sjacco de Vos said that the goal is to ensure that access to land is secured and TAP can begin the pipeline construction on schedule, and also to ensure that people affected by the project are properly compensated according to the EBRD standards.

TAP has also established an impartial "Grievance Mechanism" - an efficient and quick process to receive complaints/expressions of concern from people living near the proposed pipeline, and

A consortium of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development announced its choice of the TAP project in late June, as a gas transportation route to the European markets.

The initial capacity of the TAP pipeline will be 10 billion cubic meters per year with the possibility of expanding to 20 billion cubic meters per year.

TAP shareholders are BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Statoil (20 percent), Fluxys (16 percent), Total (10 percent), E.ON (9 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).
The construction of TAP is expected to start in 2015.

Royal HaskoningDHV, headquartered in Amersfoort (the Netherlands), is a leading, international consultancy, engineering and project management service provider, ranking globally in the top of independently owned, non-listed engineering consultancy companies and in the top 50 overall.