TIRANA (Albania), June 7 (SeeNews) – The subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR in the Balkans said that four countries in Southeast Europe would establish a joint company by September to implement the Ionian-Adriatic gas pipeline project, Baku-based news agency Trend reported.
Albania, Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro will set up the joint company with the technical assistance of SOCAR Balkan, the news agency quoted the director of SOCAR Balkan, Murad Heydarov, as saying on Tuesday.
The Ionian-Adriatic Pipeline (IAP) is planned to carry natural gas from Albania's Fier via Montenegro and Bosnia, to Split in Croatia. The 516 km pipeline would be bi-directional and its annual capacity would be 5 billion cubic metres .
In Fier, IAP would connect to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), a project under construction by a consortium that includes SOCAR. TAP will transport natural gas from the Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan to Europe.
Albania, Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro signed in August 2016 a memorandum of understanding with SOCAR on the IAP project.