Beginning of TANAP construction postponed till 2014

Beginning of construction of the trans-Anadolu gas pipeline (TANAP) is postponed till 2014, Rovnag Abdullayev, President of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) told journalists in Istanbul last week.

On September 15, 2012 Abdullayev told journalists in Baku that "positive results have been already achieved in some issues and it is planned to begin TANAP construction till the end of 2013.

TANAP is 1790 km long and its initial carrying capacity will be 16 billion cub.m. of gas a year. SOCAR believes that preparatory works are carried out according to the schedule and construction works will start by mid-2014.

Abdullayev said that the preparatory works include design, defining land plots, via which the pipeline will be laid, and reports about impact of construction on environment and social sector.

TANAP Co company was registered in Netherlands in August 2012. Its Turkish division started to work in October 2012.

TANAP Co shareholders are SOCAR with 80%, and Turkish BOTAS (10%) and TPAO (10%). In September 2012 SOCAR officially notified the Shah-Deniz project partners about the shares that they can buy in this infrastructural project. At the end of October 2012 BP, Statoil and TOTAL notified SOCAR that they are ready to take part in the TANAP with the shares 12%, 12% and 5%, respectively. However, the companies have not signed the purchase-sale contract with SOCAR yet. According to BP's last statement, "they hope that the issue will be solved till the end of 2012."

According to preliminary information, TANAP construction will take 34-36 months. According to estimates of western specialists, the investments with 8 billion Euro will be needed to build the first part of the pipeline. The pipeline designed in a way so its carrying capacity can be expanded twice - up to 24 billion cub.m. a year in 2022 and up to 32 cub.m. in 2025-2026.-0-