Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 19
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has a constructive dialogue with the Greek government, a source in TAP project told Trend.
"TAP is continuing to cooperate fully and has an ongoing constructive dialogue with the Greek Government," a source said.
Last week Greece's Environment and Energy Minister Panos Skourletis during the meeting with the US Department of State's Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein highlighted the strategic importance of the TAP project. However, the minister also touched upon the issue regarding the increase of transit benefit from TAP for Greece.
In particular, the minister spoke about the compensation for the pipeline's running through forest areas and public lands.
Amos Hochstein, in his turn, urged the Greek government and the TAP consortium to openly discuss all the discrepancies to commonly find a solution.
Despite some discontent from the Greek side, TAP is confident of its timely readiness to transport Azerbaijani gas.
"TAP is continuing its development according to schedule and will be ready to transport gas from Shah Deniz II when it comes on stream in 2020," the source in TAP said.
TAP will transport natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan to Europe. The 878 km long pipeline will connect with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Turkish-Greek border at Kipoi, cross Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.
TAP's shareholding is comprised of BP (20%), SOCAR (20%), Statoil (20%), Fluxys (19%), Enagás (16%) and Axpo (5%).
TAP's initial capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic meters per year.
