Page 8 - EurOil Week 18 2022
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EurOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT EurOil
Aliyev: TAP pipeline to reach full capacity
in 2022, could double later
SOUTHERN ILHAM Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, possibility of increasing the amount of Azerbai-
EUROPE said on April 29 that the Trans Adriatic Pipeline jani gas delivered to the Italian market via the
(TAP) was on track to reach full capacity this TAP network with Italy’s Prime Minister Mario
year and would deliver 10bn cubic metres of Draghi and Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.
natural gas to Italy. He did not reveal the details of those conversa-
Speaking at the ‘South Caucasus: Develop- tions, but he did state that Draghi was not the
ment and Co-operation’ conference in Baku, only European leader that had asked Azerbai-
Aliyev noted that the TAP network had pumped jan to supply additional gas to replace Russian
8.2 bcm of gas to Italy in 2021. Volumes are set to imports.
rise to full design capacity this year, and the TAP In light of all these requests from Europe, he Aliyev said he had
system will deliver gas from Azerbaijan’s Shah added, Azerbaijan will have to consider its own
Deniz field to buyers in Turkey, Bulgaria, Italy gas development strategy carefully. It will also already discussed
and Greece, he stated. have to work to co-ordinate upstream and mid-
He went on to say that TAP had no imme- stream operations, he remarked. the possibility
diate plans to increase throughput, as it did not “Larger export volumes are required today.
have any contracts in place that provided for However, one needs to take a look at the gas of increasing
boosting delivery volumes. But if shareholders sources in Azerbaijan. They will involve opti- the amount of
in the pipeline consortium reach agreement on mising gas losses, introducing renewable energy
the matter, he remarked, they can give the system sources [to free up gas production for export] Azerbaijani gas
the capacity to handle more gas. This would take and commissioning new deposits,” he said. “For
some time to accomplish, he cautioned. instance, the Absheron deposit will produce 1.5 delivered to the
“The capacity of the TAP gas pipeline may be bcm of gas per year. We expect gas extraction to
increased to 20 bcm [per year] of gas by installing start at other deposits as well. At the same time, Italian market.
additional compressor stations,” he explained in as we consider increasing gas exports, we also
a speech that was broadcast live on social media. need to take the potential of gas pipelines into
“I do not want to go much into technical details consideration.”
now, but it will require the shareholders of the TAP is the westernmost component of the
TAP pipeline to reach a joint opinion and to Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), a network of
adopt a relevant investment decision. However, three pipelines built to handle production from
one ought to understand that this issue cannot be the Shah Deniz Phase II project. It has a through-
resolved within a month.” put capacity of 10 bcm per year and runs from
Aliyev said he had already discussed the western Turkey to southern Italy.
P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 18 04•May•2022
