BP confirms intention to acquire share in TANAP

Company BP confirms its intention announced earlier to acquire a 12-percent share in the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline project (TANAP) that the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) offered to it, and continues negotiations on this issue in order to complete them by late 2012.

A source in the company told Trend on Friday, commenting on the Turkish media reports with reference to BP representative in Turkey Bud Fackrell regarding the company's intention to acquire more share than was mentioned before.

The company said that Fackrell's statement was wrongly disseminated by media outlets.

As BP-Azerbaijan told Trend on Friday, the company intends to participate in every segment of project of Azerbaijani gas supply to Europe. BP owns a 25.5-percent stake in the South Caucasus gas pipeline. It is satisfied by that volume of share, and it is not going to increase it.

In the TANAP project the company holds negotiations regarding a 12-percent stake.
As for the project of gas supply from Turkey to Europe, the company is continuing negotiations with the projects Nabucco West and Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline.

Shah Deniz partners consider two possible projects of Azerbaijani gas transportation to Europe - Nabucco West and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). These projects are considered on the same criteria in order to make a decision by May, 2013.

The TANAP project envisages the construction of a gas pipeline from Turkey's eastern border to the western border to transport gas from Azerbaijan's offshore Shah Deniz field to Europe through Turkey.

On June 26, 2012, Azerbaijan and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement on TANAP's implementation.

At present, Turkish BOTAS owns a 20 per cent share in TANAP, while SOCAR owns an 80 per cent stake.

The initial capacity of the pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters. Some six billion cubic meters of the volume will be supplied to Turkey, while the rest will be transported to Europe.

Nabucco-West envisages the construction of 1,300 km of pipeline (Bulgaria: 412 km, Romania 469 km, Hungary 384 km, Austria 47 km). from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to the Austrian Baumgarten. The shareholders are the Austrian OMV, Hungarian FGSZ, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas and German RWE.

TAP is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into Western Europe. TAP's initial pipeline capacity will be 10 billion cubic metres per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic metres per year. TAP's shareholders are EGL of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent). The total length of TAP is approximately 800 kilometers. The initial capacity of the TAP pipeline will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic meters per year.

Reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The contract on development of Shah Deniz offshore field was signed on 4 June 1996. The contract participants are BP (operator) - 25.5 per cent, Statoil - 25,5 per cent, NICO - 10 per cent, Total - 10 per cent, Lukoil - 10 per cent, TPAO - nine per cent and SOCAR - 10 per cent.


/Trend/