State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has specified the forthcoming stage-by-stage expansion of the trans-Anadolu gas pipeline (TANAP).
Khoshbakht Yusifzada, Senior Vice President of SOCAR, said in his interview to the governmental newspaper Republic last week that in 2023 carrying capacity of TANAP will reach 23 billion cub.m.
After three more years 31 billion cub.m. gas a year could be transported via this pipeline.
The TANAP contract was signed in June 2012. TANAP construction will begin in early 2015 and will be completed in mid-2018. The route of the pipeline is being currently specified, environmental monitoring of the pipeline has been performed and results of the tender for the pipeline construction will be summarized soon.
In 2019 the first gas extracted from the Shah-Deniz-2 will be pumped to the European markets. 10 billion cub.m. will be transported to Europe and 6 billion cub.m. to the Turkish market.
The next stages of TANAP expansion will be carried out at the expense of development of other Azerbaijani fields. After 2020 gas from Umid/Babak, deep-lying has beds of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) and Absheron fields will be exported.
On September 19, 2013 the Shah-Deniz consortium signed the contract for the period of 25 years with nine European companies, including Shell, Bulgar gaz, DEPA, Gas Natural Fenosa, EON, Gaz de France, Hera, Enel and Axpo, on the gas deliveries beginning since 2019.