Six Turkish companies have been selected to supply 80% of the steel pipes
required for the Trans Anatolia Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) project to
transport gas from Azerbaijan to Europe across Turkey, Turkey’s prime minister
Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday.
The Turkish government is determined to
create energy co-operation instead of energy rivalries, Davutoglu said at the
ceremony for signing the pipe supply contracts, according to a statement
published on the website of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (Ak
Parti). He noted that the TANAP project is not only an energy project but also a
huge peace project.
The six Turkish companies that won the tender for the
supply of steel pipes for the project are: Toscelik, Borusan Mannesmann, Erciyas
Boru, Emek, Umran and Noksel. Baosteel Europe, the Germany-based unit of Chinese
steel company Baosteel, has been selected to supply the remaining 20% of the
steel pipes, local daily Dunya said on Tuesday.
Turkish-based TANAP
Dogalgaz, a 70/30 joint venture between Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas
firm SOCAR and Turkish state-owned companies Botas and TPAO, launched the tender
for the supply of steel pipes for the project in July 2013. As many as 18
companies were pre-qualified in February.
The TANAP pipeline is due for
completion in 2018. It is expected to have an initial capacity of 16 billion
cubic metres (bcm) per year in 2020 and to reach an annual capacity of up to 23
bcm by 2023 and 31 bcm by 2026. The pipeline will be linked to the Trans
Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) on the Turkish-Greek border.