Page 47 - GEORptNov20

launch: BP
Pipeline (TAP) pipeline that passes through Albania as a “strategically important” project.
The 878-kilometre pipeline starts at the Greek/Turkish border, crosses Albania and, after passing under the Adriatic Sea, terminates in southern Italy. It constitutes the final segment of the Southern Gas Corridor (SCG), a supply route to transport Caspian Sea gas from Azerbaijan via Georgia, Turkey, Greece and Albania, as well as under the Adriatic, to Europe.
“TAP will carry natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe via Greece & Albania, making Albania an integral part of diversified regional energy architecture. Energy diversification = choice = security = independence,” Kim said in a tweet.
TAP AG, the company that operates the pipeline, said in a statement on October 12 that after almost four and a half years since the start of construction, the TAP project is substantially completed.
“The TAP pipeline has been filled with natural gas from the Greek-Turkish border up to the pipeline receiving terminal in Southern Italy,” it said in a statement.
The company added that currently it was finalising preparations for launching the commercial operations and offering capacity to the market in alignment with the adjacent TSOs.
The interconnection point between the TAP pipeline and the Italian gas transmission system operator Snam Rete Gas is expected to be completed and ready to transport gas by mid-November 2020. ​BP has confirmed that the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is still on track to deliver the first gas from Azerbaijan to Europe by the end of this year, as the UK oil major looks to quell concerns of a delay amid continued fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. One threat to the project is the ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory, with Baku on October 14 repeating warnings to Yerevan not to target its gas pipeline export infrastructure, and Yerevan denying it has any plans to do so and rejecting assertions from the Azerbaijanis that rockets had already been fired at the infrastructure in question, though without causing any damage.
9.1.2​ Transport sector news
Maersk launches first “block train” to link China and Georgia
Danish integrated shipping company Maersk has operated the first block train—a train type in which all the railcars carry the same commodity and are shipped from the same origin to the same destination—connecting China and Georgia.​ It is the first such service developed specifically to meet Georgian import requirements.
On October 4, the train from Xi’an in Shaanxi province, China, arrived in Tbilisi, completing a journey that inaugurated the new rail connection, which complements Maersk’s current coverage of the Caucasian republics (Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia), Maersk ​announced​.
“We are extremely happy to manage the first ever block train shipment under a product based entirely on intercontinental rail. We arranged this special service specifically for Georgian customers, and we plan to develop block train solutions for the whole Caucasus Region”, Irakli Danelia, Georgia commercial representative at A.P. Moller – Maersk, said in a press release.
In addition to providing another goods transit connection between Asia and Europe, further expansion of the product will strengthen Georgia’s role in the New Silk Road development. Xi'an has traditionally been the starting point of the Silk Road, namely the land routes that have connected East and West for over one thousand years.
47​ GEORGIA Country Report ​November 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com