BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb.11
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Italy’s Snam company, which is one of the shareholders of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, is working on the construction of the Melendugno-Brindisi pipeline, the 55 km link that will connect TAP to Italian national network, said Massimo Derchi, Snam's Chief Industrial Assets Officer, Trend reports.
He told Pipeline News that TAP, of which Snam is a 20 percent shareholder, is an important element for the diversification of gas supply sources and routes in Italy and in Europe.
“With the opening of this new corridor, our country will have the opportunity to ensure sustainable and competitive energy supplies, which will strengthen our energy security and have positive economic repercussions for families and businesses, as well as environmental benefits,” said
Derchi noted that the first gas from TAP in Italy is expected by the end of this year.
TAP is currently moving further into the project construction phase. Every day hundreds of meters of TAP’s Right of Way (ROW) are cleared, strung, welded, lowered into the trenches and backfilled, in line with the project construction steps and schedule.
At the end of December 2019, the TAP project was 91 percent completed.
Approaching the coast of Italy on its way through the 25-kilometre Italian section of the Adriatic Sea, the pipeline will pass through a specially constructed 1.5 km micro-tunnel, entering land beneath the ground, at a depth of 25 metres.
This will ensure that the pipeline does not affect the local Posidonia seagrass and the Mediterranean Maquis onshore. The pipeline will not be visible from the coast and will be invisible for its entire route.
The total length of the onshore pipeline in Italy will be approximately 8 km. There will be a landfall station in the vicinity of the landfall and a Pipeline Receiving Terminal (PRT) in the municipality of Melendugno, 8.2 km away from the coast.
The PRT will house the supervisory control centre of TAP. It will occupy a 12-hectare plot of land and has been designed to integrate with the surrounding landscape with limited visual impact. Following consultations with local stakeholders, the PRT was reduced in size by 40 percent.
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