The planned natural gas pipeline linking the Caspian area with Italy through Turkey and Greece is the quickest and most feasible project to reduce European dependency on Russia and bring Azeri gas, said an executive of the company spearheading the project Friday.
"ITGI offers Europe, especially the southeastern part, a way to diversify from Russian gas and is the quickest and most viable route for Azeri gas into Europe," Elio Ruggeri of Edison SpA (EDN.MI) told Dow Jones Newswires.
Ruggeri was referring to the Italy, Turkey, Greece Interconnector, or ITGI, which will have an annual capacity of 10 billion cubic meters, which could rise to 12 bcm.
ITGI will mainly use existing pipelines in Turkey and Greece, and needs to build an underwater link from the Greek coast to Italy.
ITGI is slated to start in 2015 if it manages to secure supplies from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II field, said Ruggeri. Current talks between Turkey and Azerbaijan over gas volumes "should be coming to an end," he said.
Unless ITGI secures gas from Shah Deniz II it won't be able to start in 2015 for lack of alternatives in the Caspian area, the Edison executive said.