Azernews.Az

By Ayya Lmahamad

TAP Managing Director Luca Schieppati has said that currently, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline is able to reach the full transport capacity of 10 billion cubic meters per year, the TAP AG consortium has reported.

“On top of this, we can add further capacity via short-term auctions,” he said.

On March 17, the consortium announced that a total of 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Azerbaijan had entered Europe via the interconnection point of Kipoi, at the Greek-Turkish border, where TAP connects to the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP).

It should be noted that out of these 10 billion cubic meters, approximately 8.5 billion cubic meters have been delivered to Italy.

“Ten billion cubic meters is symbolic, but an important milestone. A little over a year after the start of commercial operations, we have provided efficient, reliable and continuous transportation services to our shippers, making an important contribution to Europe’s energy security and supply diversification,” Luca Schieppati said.

Moreover, TAP head of commercial Marija Savova stated that the delivery of the first 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe enhances liquidity in the gas markets and reinforces TAP’s role as a reliable transporter that can significantly contribute to the security of supply in Europe.

“TAP can double its capacity and expand in stages, up to 20 billion cubic meters within 45-65 months, as a result of requests to be received during the binding phase of a market test and the accumulated requests resulting in an economically viable outcome,” the official said.

Noting that the next binding phase is currently scheduled for July 2023, Savova stated that TAP can accelerate this timeline and launch the binding phase of the market test during 2022, provided that TAP receives interest for an earlier start in the ongoing public consultation.

Azerbaijan started commercial gas supplies to Europe through the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) on December 31, 2020.

TAP is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor and is a pipeline project to transport natural gas, starting from Greece via Albania and the Adriatic Sea to Italy and further to Western Europe.

The pipeline is supplied by natural gas from the second stage of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field development in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea through the South Caucasus Pipeline and TANAP.

The total length of the pipeline is 878 km, of which 550 km is in Greece, 215 km in Albania, 105 km offshore, and 8 km in Italy. The offshore leg is laid at a maximum depth of 810 meters.

The initial capacity of the pipeline is about 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, with the option to expand the capacity up to 20 billion cubic meters.

TAP’s shareholders are BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagás (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent)

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Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad

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