The opening of the European connection of the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), the major segment of the Southern Gas Corridor, was held at MS4, TANAP measurement point in Edirne Ipsala, Turkey. President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia of Georgia, ministers of Turkey, Northern Macedonia, Qatar and Bulgaria, high-level officials of Italy, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and the European Union, senior managers of SOCAR, BOTAŞ and BP, as well as important business people attended the international ceremony.
The European connection of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), one of the most important projects of strategic energy cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkey, was marked by an international ceremony at MS4 measurement point, Ipsala Edirne. The ceremony hosted by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and honored by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, was attended by prime minister of Georgia Giorgi Gakharia, ministers of Turkey, Northern Macedonia, Qatar and Bulgaria, high-level officials of Italy, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and the European Union, SOCAR President and TANAP Chairman Rovnag Abdullayev, senior managers of BP and BOTAŞ - project partners, as well as representatives of the energy sector from the Southern Gas Corridor member-countries.
SOCAR President and TANAP Chairman Rovnag Abdullayev addressed the meeting: “Last year we launched the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor and its major segment - TANAP. Today TANAP is fully ready to deliver natural gas to Europe. The construction of this historic infrastructure extended from the East to the West throughout Turkey was finished within time and to a high standard. On completion of the construction of Trans Adriatic Pipeline, which will be connected with TANAP at the Turkish-Greek border, Azerbaijani natural gas will be transported directly from the Caspian basin to European markets for the first time in history. We look forward to becoming not only Europe’s gas supplier, but the second biggest gas supplier to Turkey.
We fulfilled this significant project of TANAP together with our partners. This was the first complex project managed and completed by SOCAR outside the country, we are proud to have achieved a high level of efficiency in the construction work.
We finished the construction work at a cost significantly lower than the forecasts by international consultants who estimated the project, thus saving resources for the pipeline shareholders - the governments of Azerbaijan and Turkey, and BP.”
The international consultants estimated the project at $11.7 billon, but with effective management, the project actually came in under this and cost $6.5 billion: a total saving of 45%. Completing the TANAP work within due time and to a high quality SOCAR managed to reduce the costs, saving $5.2 billion for the pipeline shareholders, including Azerbaijan and Turkey.
3.3 BILLION CUBIC METERS OF NATURAL GAS HAVE BEEN TRANSPORTED
In the context of commercial operations, TANAP has transported 3.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas to BOTAŞ since November 18, 2019 and is expected to deliver 4 billion cubic meters to Turkey between June, 2019 and June 2020. Turkey will receive 6 billion cubic meters a year from the end of June 2020. Azerbaijani gas will be delivered to European markets from next year and reach 16 billion cubic meters transportation capacity, 10 billion cubic meters of which will be exported to Europe from 2020. TANAP’s capacity is expected to rise to 31 billion cubic meters with/after the additional investments.
The first phase of TANAP from Turkish-Georgian border to Eskişehir was launched in an international ceremony held on June 12, 2018 and transportation of the first commercial gas to Turkey began on June 30, 2018. The section of pipeline between Eskişehir and European connection point at the Turkish-Greek border was completed mechanically by the end of 2018, and pipeline filling and test pumping began in April 2019. On July 1, 2019, TANAP, the longest and broadest multinational cross-country natural gas pipeline of Turkey, Middle East and Europe, became fully functional and ready to supply gas to Europe.
TANAP IN THE FIGURES:
• 1.850-km length.
• More than 30% of the pipeline was built 2000 meters above the sea.
• 135.332 major pipes welded in TANAP project.
• The project required 114,690,031 people/hour work, while its highest point is 2.760 meters, the deepest point is 65 meters under the sea.
• Within the construction operations, 50,633,382 cubic meters of excavation and nearly 7,000 special passages were constructed.
• 13,000 people were involved in the most intensive phase of TANAP construction and the gas transportation via the pipeline started on June 30, 2018.
• Through the Social and Environmental Investment Program (SEIP), the largest social and environmental projects implemented by the private sector in Turkey, TANAP carried out nearly 1000 projects to contribute to the social-economic development and to protect natural sources in the regions, villages and settlements, where it runs.