The statement from the consortium said that TAP’s current capacity is 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year, but it has been designed to support the expansion to double the current capacity. TAP AG, a company in charge of the construction and operation of Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline (TAP), announced that it will launch a tender for binding offers for the pipeline’s potential capacity expansion in July. The consortium also said that a total of one billion cubic meters of natural gas from Azerbaijan has been delivered to Europe since TAP’s commissioning on 31 December 2020.
TAP project consists of 878 km long pipeline that connects to the Trans-Anatolian (TANAP) near the Turkish-Greek border and cross Greece, Albania and Adriatic Sea before reaching its final destination in Italy. Current shareholders of TAP AG are British Petroleum (20 %), Azeri state-owned SOCAR (20 %), Italian Snam (20 %), Belgian Fluxys (19 %), Spanish Enagas (16 %) and Swiss Axpo with 5 % of the shares. The initial capacity of the pipeline is 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year, with an option to expand the capacity to 20 billion cubic meters. The cost of the project was initially estimated at some 6 billion euros, but in 2016 CEO of TAP AG Ian Bradshaw confirmed that the construction should cost 4.5 million euros. The construction of the Greek section of the pipeline was launched in May 2016, while construction works on the Albanian section started on 30 September same year. The works on the 105 kilometers long offshore section between Albania and Italy started in October 2018. The pipeline has been put into commercial operation in December 2020.
