Gas remains the central resource in national energy consumption and in the countries’ production mix, said Luca Schieppati, managing director of Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).
TAP, which is part of Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) — one of the most ambitious projects in oil and gas industry — will transport natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz II field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to Europe.
He added that it will play a central role in the coming years, when the share of coal will increasingly decline in the energy mix.
Schieppati noted that vehicles play an important role in the decarbonisation of the economy as cars and trucks, ships running on natural gas make a very important contribution to the elimination of fine dust, which is the main cause of air pollution.
Recently, TAP has launched a market test to allow natural gas shippers to express interest, and in a later phase, potentially secure access to new, long-term capacity in TAP, thereby enabling the future expansion of the pipeline capacity.
Starting 2020, TAP plans to initially transport approximately 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, bringing a new source of gas to Europe. TAP is able to double its capacity to 20bcm/a, therefore, with the project now being more than 88 percent complete and the aim is to ensure that the pipeline can expand in line with the future demand to transport gas into Europe.
“This is a great opportunity for additional gas resources to reach the European markets, supporting the transition to a cleaner energy mix,” he noted.
TAP’s routing can facilitate gas supply to several South Eastern European countries. TAP’s landfall in Italy provides multiple opportunities for further transport of Caspian gas to the wider European markets.
It will transport natural gas from the Caspian basin to Europe, connecting with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, crossing Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to finally connect to the Italian natural gas network.
