Describing their planned pipeline as "the missing link" in the region, four major gas companies signed a consortium deal to build what they said was "the most promising project for moving gas to South Eastern Europe" from the Caucasus region.
German gas giant E.On Ruhrgas joined Norway's Statoil and EGL of Switzerland, in what they described as a strategic move to realise the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline Project (TAP).
The TAP pipeline, 520km in length, will begin in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, crossing Albania before running across the bottom of the Adriatic Sea for 115km to Brindisi in Italy.
The pipeline's planned capacity is 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) and it should become operational by 2016-2017, consortium spokespeople told EurActiv.
The project appears to be a direct competitor to both the ITGI (Interconnection Turkey-Greece-Italy) project, which is sponsored by Italian energy company Edison (EurActiv 27/04/10), and the Poseidon offshore pipeline, which is planned to run from Greece (south of Corfu) to Italy (south of Brindisi). Poseidon has a planned capacity of 9 bcm and is expected to be operational in 2015.
Both projects appear to compete with the upstream section ofNabucco, a better known and more ambitious pipeline project intended to diversify the EU's pool of supplier countries.
Nabucco is expected to bring gas to Europe from the Caucasus and the Middle East to a gas hub in Austria, via Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania. Its planned capacity is 31 bcm. The Nabucco consortium plans to start operations and marketing in 2014 with an initial capacity of eight bcm.
In the downstream Western section, ITGI and TAP appear to be competing with the Gazprom-led South Stream project (see 'Background'), a partner of Italian giant ENI.
TAP consortium members told the Brussels press that they were open to new partners to "add value" to the project, although it was unclear whether they were prepared to join forces with their apparent competitors.
TAP representatives also said their project was established on commercial terms and that they were not seeking government or EU support.
Asked about Nabucco and South Stream, Jochen Weise of E.On Ruhrgas said the TAP consortium was "not going to comment on other projects".
"We are living in turbulent times. Transportation costs are important," he said.
Rune Bjornson of Statoil said that his company was a resource owner at Shah Deniz, the largest gasfield in Azerbaijan. He said he was "delighted" that the leaders of Turkey and Azerbaijan were expected to sign a gas deal on 7-8 June that is expected to unlock Azeri gas reserves for the West (EurActiv 17/05/10).
Asked by EurActiv to comment on his company's new competitor, a representative of
Edison
expressed doubt that TAP would respect its planned time-scale.
"ITGI has almost completed the environmental permits procedures both in Greece and Italy after having filed requests for authorisation back in 2006 and 2007. Such activities are critical for reliable project time schedules. TAP has not yet even filed such requests to the competent authorities," he said.
He said his competitors also lacked a specific inter-governmental agreement between Italy, Greece and Albania - which under Italian law is a requirement to expedite the TPA exemption procedure - while ITGI had all the necessary memoranda signed and TPA exemption granted.