Money keeps coming for the Southern Gas Corridor as it has enjoyed cast-iron support politically – so far, at least.
Azerbaijan has spent $6bn of its total $11.9bn share of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) costs since 2014, the director-general of the Southern Gas Corridor Company Afgan Isaev told NGW late last year; in 2016, Baku spent just $2bn on the project, he said.
SGC consists of developing the second stage of Shah Deniz gas field (SD2), the South Caucasus pipeline expansion (SCPX), Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (Tanap) and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). Azerbaijan owns 16.7% of SD2 and SCPX, 58% of Tanap and 20% of TAP.
SGC is designed to deliver 16bn m3/yr of gas to Turkey and 10bn m3/yr to the European Union by 2021 in the first stage; and the amount will rise gradually to 31bn m3/yr during that decade.
Touching upon the foreign credits the project has attracted, he said that 2016 was a successful year: “Azerbaijan sold ten-year bonds totalling $1bn with 7% interest in international markets and it attracted $1.5bn credits and $1.276bn worth of syndicated loans for SGC.”
He said the Asian Development Bank approved early December a 15-year, $500mn loan as well as a $526mn syndicated credit for developing SD2.
Ilham Shaban, Dalga Khatinoglu
