Official: Türkiye, Azerbaijan commit to meeting extra gas needs of South-East Europe

Türkiye and Azerbaijan are making efforts to meet the extra needs of the South-East European countries for gas, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, Azernews reports.

He made the remark at the joint press conference with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani in Ankara.

Further, Cavusoglu stressed that the two countries are working to increase the capacity of TAP and TANAP.

"We're discussing the way of connecting Turkmen gas to this system that it would be beneficial for Azerbaijan as well," Cavusoglu said.

With the completion of the TAP construction on December 31, 2020, Azerbaijan began commercial gas supplies to Europe via the Southern Gas Corridor.

In 2021, TAP transported 8.1bn cubic meters of gas to Europe. In 2023, Azerbaijan plans to increase gas supplies to Europe to 11bn cubic meters. As of 2022, Azerbaijan exported 9.3bn cubic meters of gas to Europe in the first ten months and was expected to supply 11.5bn cubic meters of gas to Europe by the end of 2022.

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 10bn cubic meters of natural gas per year, with the option to expand the capacity up to 20bn 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).