By Ayya Lmahamad

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will be able to bring more than 9.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Italy in 2022, which is 2.5 billion cubic meters more than in 2021, TAP's Managing Director Luca Schieppati said, addressing the Young Hope event in Italy, Azernews reports.

“We are talking about over 13 percent of the national gas demand,” he said.

He noted that since the beginning of commercial operations, TAP has transported over 16 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe, of which over 13.5 billion cubic meters went to Italy, helping to strengthen the security of supplies for the entire continent.

Moreover, Luca Schieppati stated that TAP expansion could contribute to Europe's climate ambitions.

“TAP has the potential to transport hydrogen in the future and the pipeline’s expansion could contribute to Italy and Europe’s climate ambitions,” he said.

TAP is part of the Southern Gas Corridor and is a pipeline project to transport natural gas, starting from Greece via Albania and the Adriatic Sea to Italy and further to Western Europe.

The pipeline is supplied by natural gas from the second stage of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field development in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea through the South Caucasus Pipeline and TANAP.

The total length of the pipeline is 878 km, of which 550 km goes via Greece, 215 km via Albania, 105 km offshore, and 8 km through Italy. The offshore leg is laid at a maximum depth of 810 meters. The initial capacity of the pipeline is about 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, with the option to expand the capacity up to 20 billion cubic meters.

TAP’s shareholders are BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagás (16 percent), and Axpo (5 percent)