British Petroleum (BP) has applied to participate in the operating company for the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP), TASS reports.
“Two project partners, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and the Turkish gas pipeline company BOTAS, have agreed to set up a joint venture operator of the gas pipeline on a parity basis. According to the agreement, the structure of the operating company TANAP should be similar to the operating company of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. BP only recently joined the process, and it is not yet clear to what share of participation and at the expense of whose shares – SOCAR or BOTAS – it intends to join the company,” the agency reports.
According to the report, the participants of the joint venture SOCAR and BOTAS are discussing this issue.
The first phase of the TANAP gas pipeline began commercial gas supplies to Turkey since the end of June 2018. The gas is transferred to the local gas pipeline system in the Eskisehir area. The process of filling the line with gas in test mode up to the Turkish-Greek border, which began on April 15, ended a few days ago. TANAP announced its readiness to supply fuel to Europe as soon as the European TAP gas pipeline is ready to receive gas. This is expected next year.
TANAP is part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is being created to supply Azerbaijani gas from the Shah Deniz 2 field to Turkey and Europe. Its length is 1.85 thousand kilometers, and its capacity is 16 billion cubic meters per year with the possibility of doubling. The project cost is about 7 billion dollars. TANAP’s shareholders are SGC (51%), SOCAR Turkiye Enerji (7%), BOTAS (30%), ad BP (12%).
