Azeri state-owned oil and gas firm SOCAR and its partners staged on Saturday a
groundbreaking ceremony for the Southern Gas Corridor, a chain of gas pipelines
from the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan to Italy, aimed at diversifying gas
supplies to Europe, the government in Baku said.
The ceremony was
attended by the president of Azerbaijan, and heads of state, prime ministers and
senior officials fromBulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Albania, Britain,
Turkey, Italy and the European Union, the government said in a statement
published on its website.
The Southern Gas Corridor comprises an
extension of the South Caucasus Pipeline that will cross Azerbaijan and Georgia,
the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) across Turkey, and the Trans Adriatic
Pipeline (TAP) across Greece, Albania and into Italy.
In December 2013
the Shah Deniz consortium announced a final investment decision for the second
stage of the Shah Deniz gas field. The Shah Deniz Stage 2 will add a further 16
billion cubic meters per year (bcma) of gas production to the approximately 9.0
bcma produced by Shah Deniz Stage 1, according to information on the website of
Shah Deniz operator, oil and gas major BP.
The Shah Deniz co-venturers
are: BP, (28.8%), Azeri state-owned oil and gas firm SOCAR (16.7%), Norwegian
oil company Statoil (15.5%), French sector player Total (10%), Russia’s Lukoil
(10%), National Iranian Oil Company's Swiss unit NICO (10%) and Turkish
state-owned oil and gas firm TPAO (9.0%).
The TANAP partners are: SOCAR,
operator (70%) and Turkish companies BOTAS and TPAO.
The TAP partners
are: SOCAR (20%), BP (20%), Statoil (20%), Belgian natural gas transmission
system operator Fluxys (16%), Total (10%), Germany utility E.ON (9.0%) and Swiss
utility Axpo (5.0%).
Source: SeeNews