The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) today appreciated the news of signing an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) on the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline project (TANAP) by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, TAP's official website reported on Wednesday.

TAP Managing Director Kjetil Tungland said that the signing of this agreement is a significant and very timely step forward. "Caspian gas will now have a dedicated route across Turkey to the European Union, and that is good news for TAP," he added. "As the Shah Deniz consortium's chosen project for the southern route into Europe, via Greece, Albania and Italy, we appreciate the contribution that this development brings to opening up the Southern Gas Corridor."

He added that all now look forward to the consortium's announcement of its preferred bidder for the northern route, and ultimately to the decision on which of the two options will connect with TANAP. "We remain confident that the economic, commercial, technical and strategic advantages of our project will see a decision in our favour," Tungland added.

This week Azerbaijan and Turkey signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on TANAP. The document was signed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Agreement was also signed by Azerbaijani minister of industry and energy Natig Aliyev and Turkish minister of energy and natural resources Taner Yildiz.

TANAP project envisages construction of the pipeline from the eastern border of Turkey to the country's western border to supply gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas field to Europe through Turkey. BOTAS has a 20 per cent stake in TANAP, while the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) holds 80 per cent in the project.

The initial capacity of the pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters. Some 6 billion cubic meters of the volume will be supplied to Turkey, while the rest will be transported to Europe.

TAP is one of the Southern Gas Corridor projects, designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into Western Europe. Gas to be produced during the second phase of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development is considered as the main source for TAP.

In February, the Shah Deniz Consortium announced that TAP was chosen as the priority route for export of the Azerbaijani gas to Italy.

TAP's shareholders are EGL of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent).

The total length of TAP is approximately 800 kilometres. The initial pipeline capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic metres per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic metres per year.

/Trend/