SOCAR Names Date For Launching TANAP
By Maksim Tsurkov
The ceremony of commissioning the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) will be held June 19 in Turkey, Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reported citing Vagif Aliyev, head of the Investments Division of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR.
He noted that the holding of early parliamentary and presidential elections in Turkey on June 24 influenced the decision to postpone the TANAP commissioning ceremony.
“It was planned that the first gas supplies from Azerbaijan to Turkey via TANAP will begin in the first week of July,” he said. “However, during the last week meeting of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it was decided to hold the TANAP commissioning ceremony on June 19.”
Vagif Aliyev added that TANAP is a very complex project.
“Usually, there were delays in the implementation of projects with foreign companies,” he said. “However, the Southern Gas Corridor project is being implemented in line with the schedule. It is very difficult to implement such projects without state support. TANAP was considered as a strategic project and was fully supported by the participating states.”
“Sixteen billion cubic meters of gas will be exported via TANAP from the Shah Deniz field, six billion of them will be sent to Turkey and 10 billion will be sent to Europe,” he noted. “These volumes may grow to 31 billion cubic meters only through the construction of additional stations. Thus, the volume of gas supplied by Azerbaijan to Turkey will increase to 12 billion cubic meters.”
TANAP project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field to the western borders of Turkey. The gas will be delivered to Turkey in 2018 and after completion of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline’s construction the gas will be delivered to Europe in early 2020.
The length of TANAP is 1,850 kilometers.
