Azernews.Az

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG (TAP) submitted on Tuesday its updated Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) to the Italian Ministry of the Environment and Protection of Land and Sea, TAP reported.

"The latest stage in a process, started in March 2012, will now see the final documentation go to consultation with all relevant national, regional and local authorities," the report said.

The submitted documentation analyses risks and opportunities linked to the pipeline project, considers its environmental and socio-economic and cultural heritage effects and describes how any possible negative impacts will be mitigated or eliminated.

Replacing in full the document submitted in March 2012, the updated ESIA describes TAP's new configuration in Italy, addressing comments received during extensive consultation.

TAP is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region to western and south-eastern Europe. The pipeline will originate in Greece (in Kipoi, near the Turkish border), then it will cross Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea and will finally land in southern Italy.

The gas which will be produced in the second phase of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development, is considered as the main source of the project.

The Shah Deniz Consortium announced its choice of the TAP project in late June as a gas transportation route to 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).