90% of TAP Laid in Greece and Albania

The laying of pipes in Greece and Albania has been completed by more than 94% along the route of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which provides for the transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, the TAG AG consortium said.

"This means that the pipes were laid for more than 720 kilometers out of 765 kilometers of the entire pipeline route in these countries.

The TAP, worth EUR 4.5 billion, is part of the Southern Gas Corridor project and will be connected to another gas pipeline - TANAP - on the Turkish-Greek border: it will be laid across the territory of Greece, Albania, the bottom of the Adriatic Sea, and then sent to the south of Italy.

It is expected that the construction of the TAP will be completed in 2020 so that in the same year the first Azerbaijani gas will reach Europe.

The initial capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year with the possibility of doubling that.

On May 29, the launching ceremony of the first stage of the Southern Gas Corridor project took place in Baku. The first gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already passed through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor, from the Sangachal terminal extended by Shah Deniz-2 through the expanded South Caucasus gas pipeline.

By Dimitri Dolaberidze