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BP-Azerbaijan: Shah Deniz considered 10 different routes for delivery of Azeri gas to Europe and made the right choice to stay on TAP

28 June 2013 13:27 (UTC +04:00)

To him, the consortium considered 10 different routes for the transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe over the last 4 years: ‘Fairly hard work was conducted during this period and consequently, the consortium Shah Deniz chose TAP. I think this is the right choice’.

Speaking about the selection criteria, Cook noted that from a commercial point of view there is a big difference between TAP and Nabucco West projects. It has been reflected both in the cost of gas and its delivery: ‘In general, the selection process focused on eight key criterions and the selection was based on both commercial and political criterions’.

Remind that, today, Azerbaijan has officially announced selection of TAP project for delivery of Azeri gas to Europe. The TAP project is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to the south of Italy and further to Western Europe.

Gas which will be produced during the second stage of Shah Deniz field development is considered as the main source for the project. The TAP route will be approximately 870 kilometers in length (Greece 550 km; Albania 210 km; offshore Adriatic Sea 15km; Italy 5 km).
TAP's initial pipeline capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, but it will be easily expandable to 20 billion cubic meters per year. TAP's shareholders are AXPO of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent).