SOCAR Claims $877 Mln TAP 20% Complete

TBILISI - SOCAR, Azerbaijan's state oil company, recently announced that the construction cost of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline's (TAP) Southern Gas Corridor is expected to exceed USD 1 billion, the Trend News Agency reported.

“The cost of the Southern Gas Corridor, the basic package of which belongs to the government of Azerbaijan, will amount to USD 1.2 billion by 2020,” said a representative of SOCAR, which owns a 49 percent share in the joint-stock company, on July 1.

As SOCAR reported, 14 per cent of the investment, or USD 877 million, has already been spent on the TAP's construction. The company also announced that 19.5 per cent of the works has already been completed.

The aim of the Southern Gas Corridor project is to transport natural gas, via a 3,460 km pipeline, to southern Italy from Azerbaijan. The route passes through Georgia, Turkey, Greece and Albania at a cost of USD 45 billion.

The TAP is a part of the 870 km route starting from Greece and extending through Albania to the Adriatic Sea, where it then connects to Italy.

The throughput capacity ranges between 10 to 20 billion cubic meters. This pipeline will also be connected to the TANAP pipeline (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey) on the Turkish-Greek border.

Natural gas transit volume to Georgia via the pipeline is expected to increase from 2019, with Georgia receiving 1 billion cubic meters of gas as part of its transit fees.

Eka Karsaulidze