TIRANA (Albania), October 16 (SeeNews) – The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) consortium has made the last delivery of steel pipes for the construction of the gas pipeline in the host countries of Albania, Greece and Italy, TAP said on Monday.
The shipment arrived on October 10 in Thessaloniki, Greece, completing the transport of 55,000 pipes and bends, which started in April 2016 with Durres, Albania.
John Haynes, TAP Project Director, said it was a key milestone towards the successful implementation of the project, adding that the deliveries were carried out safely and in line with the schedule.
TAP said in August that it had trenched 360 kilometres (km) out of the 765 km-long pipeline in Greece and Albania. Gas deliveries to Europe will start in 2020.
TAP, which will transport gas from the Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan to Europe via Albania, is seen as an alternative to Russian gas supplies.The total investment of the consortium in Albania will stand at 400 million euro ($440 million) in each of 2017 and 2018, Albanian media quoted TAP Albania country manager, Shkelqim Bozgo, as saying in August.
The present TAP shareholders are BP, Azerbaijan’s state company Socar and Italy’s Snam with 20% each, Belgium’s Fluxys with 19%, Spain’s Enagas with 16% and Swiss-based Axpo with 5%.
($ = 0.909 euro)