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Kjetli Tungland: TAP heads into critical year

29 January 2011 09:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Nijat Mustafayev â€“ APA-Economics. This year will be a decisive year for the Southern Gas Corridor with critically important decisions due for the Trans Atlantic Pipeline (TAP) said project managing director Kjetil Tungland, APA-Economics reports. â€œIn April we expect to hear which companies have been successful in procuring gas from the Shah Deniz II consortium,â€ said Tungland in a statement.
â€œThis will then lead directly to a decision on which transportation solution becomes the cornerstone in the Southern Gas Corridor for bringing Caspian gas to European markets.â€
In 2011, a significant increase in activity will take place for TAP as the projects country presence grows and Statoil and E.ON take on direct project implementation activities in Italy, Albania and Greece as technical service providers, said Tungland.
â€œTAP is in a strong position at this critically important stage and we remain optimistic of the outcome,â€ he said.
South Corridor includes TAP, TGI (Turkey-Greece-Italy) and Nabucco projects, The TAP pipeline would be supplied by natural gas from the Caspian region and the Middle East through the existing and planned gas transportation networks in Turkey. The source of supply to fill TAPâ€™s initial capacity of 10 billion cubic metres per year will come from the second stage of development of the Shah Deniz natural gas field in Azerbaijan. The initial capacity of the pipeline will be about 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, with the option to expand the capacity up to 20 bcm. The total length of the pipeline is 520 km. The length of the offshore section will be 115 km at a maximum depth of 820 m. TAP also plans to develop an underground natural gas storage facility in Albania and offer a reverse flow possibility of up to 8.5 bcm. These features will ensure additional energy security for the Southeastern Europe. Total construction costs are expected to be about â‚¬1.5 billion. EGL, Statoil and E.ON Ruhrgas are TAP shareholders.
The Shah Deniz reserves are estimates to be between 1.5 billion barrels (240,000,000 m3) to 3 billion barrels (480,000,000 m3) of oil equivalent from 50 to 100 billion cubic meters of gas. Gas production to date at the end of 2005 was estimated to be approximately 7 billion cubic meters (600 mmcf/day avg). The Shah Deniz field also contains gas condensate in excess of 400 million cubic meters. The Shah Deniz field is operated by BP which has a share of 25.5%. Other partners include Statoil (25.5%), SOCAR (10%), Total S.A. (10%), LukAgip, a joint company of Eni and LUKoil (10%), NIOC (10%), and TPAO (9%).