Page 64 - GEORptSep22

9.2 Major corporate news 9.2.1 Oil & gas corporate news
BP suspends oil exports via the Baku-Supsa pipeline
Azerbaijan’s gas deliveries via TAP reach 33 mcm per day
The consortium operating the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) megastructure in the Caspian Sea led by British oil giant BP has suspended oil shipments from Sangachal to a Georgian port on the Black Sea along the Baku-Supsa route, according to BP Azerbaijan.
According to BP, the last time oil was exported via this route was in April. At that time, oil was transported from the port of Supsa by two tankers belonging to BP and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR).
All oil produced by the consortium at ACG is likely to be sent via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. According to traders, deliveries along the Baku-Supsa route were suspended due to the 'complexity of logistics in the Black Sea', hinting at possible Russian intervention in oil delivery.
The BTC oil export pipeline has achieved the milestone of 500mn tonnes of oil in total from the Sangachal terminal near Baku across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to Ceyhan. The milestone was achieved on 12 December when the 500 millionth tonne of Caspian crude flowed through the pipeline, according to a statement released by BP.
The gas capacity of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) could be increased to 12bn cubic metres (bcm) per year without the building of a new pipe, said Luca Schieppati, managing director of pipeline company TAP AG, during a speech carried by Sky TG24.
“Over the past three days, TAP has been operating at maximum capacity, transporting 33 million cubic metres [mcm] of gas per day [following March during which it carried 28 mcm per day]. In annual terms, this corresponds to an accumulation of 12 bcm, of which 10.5 bcm can end up delivered to Italy. (...) To increase the volume of gas supplies via TAP, there is no need to use another pipe, we only need to increase the compression in Greece and Albania,” he said.
Schieppati also noted that the long-term goal was to double the capacity of the pipeline. “From this point of view, the support of the European Commission and the Italian government is important,” Shippati said. “Gas pipelines such as TAP now serve to enhance energy security and will continue to serve in the future due to the ability to transport hydrogen mixed with gas over the same infrastructure,” he added.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that gas exports from Azerbaijan to Europe via TAP in 2022 will reach the projected 10 bcm. Earlier, TAP AG reported that the volume of Azerbaijani gas exported to Europe via TAP from December 31, 2020 to December 31, 2021 amounted to 8.1 bcm. Of this volume, over 6.8 bcm were delivered to Italy, and around 1.2 bcm to Greece and Bulgaria.
Azerbaijani gas supplies via the TAP gas pipeline to consumers in Italy, Greece and Bulgaria began on December 31, 2020. The total length of TAP is 878 km, of which 550 km passes through the northern part of Greece, 215 km through the territory of Albania, 105 km through a pipe laid across the Adriatic seabed and 8 km across the territory of Italy to the terminus. TAP is the last component of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project, the name for the interconnected infrastructure that allows Azerbaijan to supply gas to Europe. Prior to entering TAP in Greece, the gas flows via pipelines laid across Georgia and Turkey.
64 GEORGIA Country Report September 2022 www.intellinews.com