ECONOMY
Ian Bradshaw: TAP construction to start in late May
Baku, March 1, AZERTAC
The construction of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), one of the main components of the Southern Gas Corridor, will start in late May-early July, Ian Bradshaw, Managing Director at TAP, stated at the 2nd Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council meeting in Baku.
According to him, the groundbreaking ceremony will take place in Greek city of Thessaloniki.
For successful development of the project, the Greek side has taken necessary steps, he added.
The TAP route will be approximately 870 kilometers in length (Greece 550 km; Albania 210 km; offshore Adriatic Sea 15km; Italy 5 km). TAP's initial pipeline capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, but it will be easily expandable to 20 billion cubic meters per year. TAP is designed for transportation of natural gas of Shahdeniz 2 to Western Europe through Greece and Albania. Annual capacity is 10 bcm of gas. However, it's possible to increase the capacity to 20 bcm. This pipeline will start to transport Azerbaijani gas in 2019.
TAP shareholders are: BP - 20%, SOCAR - 20%, Statoil - 20%, Fluxys - 19%, Enagas - 16% and EGL-Axpo - 5%.