TAP is the European leg of the Southern Gas Corridor, a gateway project that will transport 10 billion cu m (bcm/a) of new gas supplies from Azerbaijan to multiple markets in Europe. The TAP system designed with the potential to double its throughput capacity to 20 bcm/a.
Luca Schieppati, TAP’s Managing Director, commented: “As a new transmission system operator, developed and built in compliance with best industry practices and standards, TAP enables double diversification: a new, reliable and sustainable energy route and source of gas reaching millions of European end-users, for decades to come.”
Murad Heydarov, Chairman of TAP’s Board of Directors, added: “As a key component of the 3,500km Southern Gas Corridor, TAP combines strategic and market competitive features. It ensures that Europe can receive supplies from yet another source, while supporting the key EU objectives of achieving an integrated energy market, and a sustainable, secure and diversified energy mix, contributing to ongoing streams towards clean energy transition.”
A few facts and figures on what the TAP project has entailed so far:
- Traveling through Greece (550 km), Albania (215 km), under the Adriatic Sea (105 km) and coming ashore in Italy (8 km).
- Laying approximately 55,000 pieces of pipe, weighing a total of 520,000 tonnes; from an altitude of 2,100m in the Albanian mountains to a depth of 810m in the Adriatic Sea.
- Working over 50 million man-hours and driving around 140 million km, without any €3.9 billion for project financing and complying with the lenders' robust social and environmental requirements.
- Continuously engaging with the communities along the pipeline route, TAP established trustful relationships and implemented a wide range of social and environmental investments, improving livelihoods.
- Building a strong company culture based on the values of excellence, people, integrity and responsibility, and summarised in the motto ''how we achieve our results is just as important as the results themselves.''
TAP transports natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea to Europe. The 878 km long pipeline connects with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Turkish-Greek border in Kipoi, crosses Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.
TAP will facilitate gas supplies to South Eastern European countries. TAP’s exits in Greece and Albania together with the landfall in Italy provide multiple opportunities for further transport of Azerbaijan gas to the wider European markets.
To read the article in Russian.
