The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is set to start commercial activities in July of 2021, Teodora Georgieva, the Executive Officer of the Gas Interconnector Greece - Bulgaria (IGB) project, said.
Ms. Georgieva said that the pandemic forced them to put the IGB into operation at a later date and, more precisely, in early October.
The Greek company J&P AVAX, a contracting party carrying out the project, presented a request for an extension of the term.
After the completion of the IGB, Bulgaria will meet 33% of its total requirement for gas thanks to the TAP.
The IGB's function is to export gas produced in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea to Bulgaria; the interconnector will connect to the TAP, with the IGB allowing Bulgaria to get one bln m3 gas annually.
The state-owned Bulgargaz EAD has concluded a contract with the Shah Deniz Consortium to purchase one bln cubic meters of gas from the Shah Deniz II – Gas Field. According to the contract, the Azerbaijani gas will meet 25-30 percent of Bulgaria's needs for natural gas.
The interconnector is 182 km long, with 150 km passing through Bulgaria. The annual capacity of the interconnector is set to be 3-5 bln m3.
Shah Deniz field gas is transported to Turkey. The Turkish market is supplied with gas through the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum) and the TANAP. The Turkish market first received gas via the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline in 2007, while it was supplied with the TANAP commercial gas on 30 June 2018.
The TAP's shareholders are as follows: the SOCAR (20%), BP (20%), Snam (20%), Fluxys (19%), Enagás (16%), and Axpo (5%).
