Page 6 - FSUOGM Week 07 2020

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM
Azeri gas to arrive in Europe by end-2020: SOCAR
AZERBAIJAN
Azerbaijan has signed a 25-year gas supply deal with Italy.
A 25-year supply contract has been signed with Italy and the rst Azeri gas is expected to start owing to the EU before the end of 2020, Vitaly Baylarbayov, deputy vice president of Azerbai- jan’s national oil company Socar, was quoted as saying by EURACTIV in an interview on Feb- ruary 13.
e $40bn Southern Gas Corridor (SCG), made up of interconnected pipelines linking Azerbaijan to Italy, is “almost ready”, he added. The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the only SGC pipeline still being worked on it now 91% complex, he said.
e SCG receives gas fromthe Shah Deniz eld, located in the economic zone of Azerbai- jan in the Caspian Sea. e project links three pipelines with a total length of almost 4,000 km: South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) linking Azerbai- jan with Georgia, the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) across Turkey and the Trans-Adriatic pipeline (TAP) linking Greece, Albania and Italy with an o shore section crossing the Adriatic.
Previous estimations for SCG completion suggested a $45bn price tag.
The last 8 km stretch of TAP, on Italian territory, is the most sensitive politically. e
local population have resisted the pipeline, fearing for their beaches and tourism industry. According to Baylarbayov’s statements in the interview, a micro-tunnel allowing the pipe- line to avoid the beach of San Foca, the landing point in southern Italy, has now been com- pleted. e conservative timing to make TAP operational was the end of 2020, and possibly earlier than that, he added.
“Whatever we do on the territory of Italy is done with the absolutely highest level of envi- ronmental precaution, which is not less strict on the territory of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Greece,” the executive was cited as saying.
New archaeological discoveries could still delay TAP completion, he noted.
For Italy, SCG supplies are earmarked at 8+bcm/year, Baylarbayov’s added.
Asked if SCG was in competition with Rus- sia’s TurkStream, he said the answer was always NO. “Our volumes, contracted to Greece, Bul- garia and Italy for 25 years, will start arriving to Italy as soon as TAP is ready. is cannot be changed. Whether there will be Russian, Lib- yan, Algerian or any other gas, it doesn’t matter, because we secured our own place”. ™
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Week 07 19•February•2020