TAP pipeline won the tender to channel natural gas form the Caspian Sea to Europe. the pipeline will collect Azerbaijani gas in Turkey and carry it across Greece and Albania before reaching southern Italy, stretching 870 kilometers (540 miles).
BP, the main developer of the Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea, has confirmed that a gas pipeline to Europe will go through Greece and then under the sea into Italy.
Regional BP president Gordon Birell said at an official ceremony in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, on Friday that the project has been awarded to the Greece-Albania-Italy Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, or TAP. The other option, the Nabucco West venture, would have run across Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria.
TAP is comprised of Norway’s Statoil, Axpo of Switzerland and the German firm E.ON.
The pipeline will run nearly 800 kilometers (500 miles) across northern Greece and into southern Albania before traveling under sea to Italy.
BP holds 25.5 percent of the Shah Deniz project, while Statoil holds another 25.5 percent.
Debt-ridden, austerity- and unemployment-hit Greece puts a lot of hope in the project in terms of revenues and jobs creation.
“Greece will earn 320 million euros, and around 2,700 new jobs will be created by the project during the construction period between 2015 and 2018. In the next 50 years, it will earn around 35 billion euros, posting 5 billion euros of net profit.” (HDN)
PS Now I will sit back and wait for the money to come. At the same time I will look forward to see the natural gas prices in Greece drop and thus in the time while I am still alive.
