Trans-Adriatic (TAP) pipeline sections in Albania and then in Italy will get the gas in coming weeks and months, the chairman of TAP Board of Directors Murad Heydarov said.
Heydarov said that TAP’s project activities are in full compliance with the COVID 19 related sanitary provisions in Greece, Albania and Italy, with the aim to enable the project to progress towards delivering first gas volumes within 2020. At the end of February 2020, TAP project was almost 93.5 % complete. In the upcoming weeks and months, the plan is to introduce first gas in Albania and then in Italy.
TAP project envisages 878 km long pipeline that will connect 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 on 17 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.
