Page 6 - FSUOGM Week 27 2019

FSUOGM COMMENTARY FSUOGM
TANAP now ready for Europe
The second phase of TANAP running to Turkey’s border with Greece was ready to start operations as of July 1.
TURKEY
THE Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) is now ready to deliver Azeri gas to Europe via Turkey, creating a new alternative to Russian gas as European countries seek to diver- sify supplies and boost their energy security.
The second phase of TANAP running to Turkey’s border with Greece was ready to start operations as of July 1. Next year, a er the com- pletion of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which connects with TANAP at the Turk- ish-Greek border, Azerbaijan will start deliv- ering gas to European markets from the giant o shore Shah Deniz eld.
Decades a er the idea of building pipeline to deliver gas to Europe from the newly independ- ent post-Soviet states of the Caspian region was rst broached in the early 1990s, completion of the pipelines will nally make the Southern Gas Corridor a reality.
The first phase of the route, already com- pleted, is the South Caucasus Pipeline that car- ries gas from Azerbaijan via Georgia to Turkey. is links to TANAP, which in turn will link to TAP that will carry the gas on via Greece and Albania, then under the Adriatic Sea to Italy.
TANAP — the central part of the chain — is the longest and widest natural gas pipe- line in Turkey, Middle East and Europe, said
Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, one of TANAP’s stakeholders, along with the Azeri government, Turkey’s Botas, inter- national oil and gas major BP and SOCAR Turkey Energy.
It is ve and a half years since the nal invest- ment decision for TANAP was taken in Decem- ber 2013, with construction work beginning two years later. e rst phase of TANAP from the Turkish-Georgian border to Eskisehir was com- pleted in June 2018, and the rst commercial gas reached Turkey later the same month.
“Today TANAP is ready to supply natural gas to Europe and we are expecting the work on TAP pipeline to be completed,” commented Rovnag Abdullayev, president of SOCAR, in a July 1 statement.
Abdullayev also stressed the cost savings dur- ing the major construction project: in contrast to the cost-overruns at many major infrastructure projects, the initial estimated cost of $11.7bn was later revised down to under $7bn.
“Azerbaijan has demonstrated to the world that we are more than capable of delivering com- plex transnational projects both at home and abroad in a timely fashion with high e ciency. During the implementation of TANAP, SOCAR and its partners saved about $5 billion, reducing
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 27 09•July•2019