No appeal from Petronas to SOCAR over TAP share purchase

Malaysia's Petronas has not appealed to SOCAR (State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic) regarding the acquisition of a share in the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev told reporters Sept. 17.

Abdullayev said that he has no idea about Petronas’s such intentions.

"Perhaps, this was someone else's opinions and comments,” he said. “But Petronas has not officially informed of its desire to participate in TAP. No one held the negotiations with SOCAR in this regard."

Earlier, some media outlets reported about Petronas’s intention to acquire Norwegian Statoil’s share in TAP.

TAP will transport natural gas from the giant ‘Shah Deniz 2’ field in Azerbaijan to the EU countries.

The approximately 870 km long pipeline will connect with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Turkish-Greek border at Kipoi, cross Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.

The pipeline’s construction is expected to start in 2016.

TAP’s initial capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic meters per year.

The first gas as part of the Shah Deniz-2 project will be supplied to Europe via TAP in early 2020.

TAP’s shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Statoil (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagás (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

/By Trend/