TIRANA (Albania), January 30 (SeeNews) – The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) consortium said around 2/3 of the pipe has been lowered into the ground on the route of the project, part of the Southern Gas Corridor, in Albania and Greece.
Currently, approximately 515 km out of 765 km of pipes on the TAP route in the two countries are lowered into the trench, the consortium said in a Twitter post late on Monday.
"Side boom tractors are used to lower the welded pipe into the trench. Generally, around 1 km of pipe is lowered into the trench at a time,” TAP said.
The Southern Gas Corridor consists of the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), which crosses Azerbaijan and Georgia, the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), and TAP, which will stretch from the Greek border with Turkey, via Albania and the Adriatic Sea, to reach Italy's coast.
The total investment of the consortium in Albania will stand at 400 million euro ($472 million) in each of 2017 and 2018, Albanian media quoted former TAP Albania country manager, Shkelqim Bozgo, as saying last year.
The consortium plans to start full-scale operation of the pipeline in 2020, according to information posted in its website.
TAP shareholders are BP, Azerbaijan’s state company Socar and Italy’s Snam with 20% each, Belgium’s Fluxys with 19%, Spain’s Enagas with 16% and Swiss-based Axpo with 5%.
($ = 0.80431euro)