TAP to provide South East Europe with access to Azerbaijani gas

Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 20 By Aygun Badalova - Trend: The Trans Adriatic Pipeline’s (TAP) with an endpoint in Italy, will provide the South East Europe with access to Azerbaijani gas supplies in the future, Walter Peeraer, CEO of Belgium Fluxys told in an interview to Natural Gas Europe. Fluxys is one of six shareholders with a 19-percent share in TAP project. “With TAP, additional gas will arrive in Italy, the Italian network is being reinforced to handle flows to the North and our reverse flow project will allow to move the gas further to the North in Switzerland and Germany,” Peeraer said. He added that From the North of Italy it can also move into Austria. “In other words, in the future we will see a corridor from South to North but also from West to East providing reverse flow into South East Europe,” Peeraer said. The TAP project was selected by the consortium of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development as the transportation route to the European markets. The approximately 870 km long pipeline will connect with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) near the Turkish-Greek border at Kipoi, cross Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy. Peeraer said that projects like TAP not only supply energy but also bring social improvement. “TAP will build new roads and bridges, for example, and makes great efforts to enable opportunities for local companies and workforce,” Peeraer said. Earlier the spokesperson in TAP told Trend that through agreements with other pipeline system operators and national governments, and its commitment to channel a proportion of TAP's capacity into the South Eastern European region, TAP has the potential to create new gas markets and enhance energy security in South East Europe. According to the TAP's spokesperson, interconnections with other pipeline systems along its route will give TAP the potential to provide gas to a range of key markets in South East Europe including Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, FYROM, Bulgaria and Serbia. In particular, a connection to the planned Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP) will enable supplies transported through TAP to flow directly to many of these countries. TAP can further reach Austria and Hungary via the Trans Austria Gas (TAG) pipeline, Germany and France via the Transitgas pipeline through Switzerland. TAP can also supply Bulgaria by connecting to existing or planned infrastructure such as Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria, or using reverse flow on, for example, on the Interconnector Kula-Sidirokastro. TAP’s shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Statoil (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagás (16 percent) and Axpo (five percent). Construction of TAP is planned to begin in 2016. The initial capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, but it can easily be expanded to 20 billion cubic meters per year as the new volumes of gas come on stream. The first sales of gas to be produced within the second stage of Shah Deniz field development to Georgia and Turkey are targeted for late 2018, first deliveries to Europe will follow approximately a year later. --- Aygun Badalova is Trend Agency’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AygunBadalova Follow us on Twitter @TRENDNewsAgency