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Italian PM to visit Azerbaijan

29 June 2013 10:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementieva – APA. Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta will visit Azerbaijan, said the PM in his interview to New Europe newspaper.

Letta will discuss the issues on TAP during the visit. According to him, Italy’s industrial policy is closely connected with this project: “TAP has strategic importance for our future. This is a great success for our country. I will go soon to Baku to thank the Azeri Government and follow the developments during this initial phase. For us this choice is not only important from the energy point of view but it’s also strategic because the Caucasus is one of the areas of fast development: “TAP is going to have a big impact on enterprises and on the countries involved especially if we talk about jobs”.

Note that on June 28, Azerbaijan officially announced the selection of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) for natural gas deliveries to Europe.

The TAP is 520 km long, which enables the transport of gas from the Caspian Sea through Greece, Albania, the Adriatic Sea and Italian region of Puglia into the Western Europe. Total cost of the project makes approximately $2.2 bln. Annual capacity of the pipeline would make 10 bcm, in the future – 20 bcm.

At present time, the project has 3 shareholders: Swiss Axpo (42.5%), Norwegian Statoil (42.5%) and German E.ON Ruhrgas (15%) companies.