The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project company said on Wednesday it has
issued its first major invitation to tender (ITT) for the construction of the
onshore section of the pipeline.
The engineering, procurement,
construction (EPC) contract may be split into further contracts, depending on
the offering bids, TAP said in a press release.
Its scope includes the
engineering, procurement and construction of some 760 kilometres of the
cross-country onshore pipeline - 48 inches or 1.2 metres in diameter - in Greece
and Albania.
Construction of the pipeline is planned to begin in 2016 and
will be split into five lots – three lots in Greece and two lots in
Albania.
TAP plans to award the contract for the onshore pipeline
contract in the third quarter of 2015.
"The contract for the construction
of the onshore section of the TAP pipeline is the largest that TAP is planning
to award," Knut Steinar Kvindesland, procurement director at TAP
said.
"TAP’s EPC contractors will also be responsible for further
securing additional subcontractors to implement specific parts of the contract
assignment," the statement added.
TAP, with an approximate length of 870
kilometres, will transport natural gas from the Shah Deniz II field in
Azerbaijan to Europe. It will start at Kipoi, near the Turkish-Greek border, and
cross Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in southern
Italy. TAP’s routing can facilitate gas supply to several SoutheastEuropean
countries, including Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and
others.
TAP’s shareholding is comprised of BP (20%), SOCAR (20%), Statoil
(20%), Fluxys (19%), Enagas (16%) and Axpo (5%).