Azernews.Az

By Trend

Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is key, especially for South-East Europe, where energy consumption is overly reliant on heavy fossil fuels, said Luca Schieppati, TAP Managing Director, Trend reports citing TAP AG consortium.

“Via connections with the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) and potentially the Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP), our project can supply another 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year in the future,” he said.

Schieppati went on to add that TAP continues to progress on schedule; the project is more than 91 percent complete.

He added that Italian Saipem’s vessel is in Southern Italy and will shortly start laying pipes across the Adriatic Sea, to depths of around 800 meters.

TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.

Connecting with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network.

The project is currently in its construction phase, which started in 2016.

Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagás (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

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