At least $8 billion in investment will be made in Turkey during the construction of the Trans Anatolian Pipeline or TANAP, the President of the Turkish arm of Azeri state oil company SOCAR, Kenan Yavuz, told Turkey’s daily Hürriyet. The gas pipeline will carry Azeri gas from the Shah Deniz field through Turkey and connect with the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) on Turkey’s border with neighbouring Greece. TAP will go through Greece and Albania and then cross the Adriatic Sea to Italy.
TANAP’s construction is expected to start by the end of 2014 and begin operations by 2018 with a 16 billion cubic metre capacity.
On 14 August, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said 28 companies, nine of which local ones, have submitted applications in a pre-qualification tender for pipes suppliers for TANAP. The applications will be reviewed by 27 August, Yildiz said in a statement published on the ruling Justice and Development Party’s website.
The project’s owner TANAP Dogalgaz Iletim AS is controlled by SOCAR and 20%-owned by Turkish state-owned firms BOTAS and TPAO. TANAP Dogalgaz Iletim invited expressions of interest by 15 August for pre-qualification for the construction of onshore pipeline and block valve and pigging stations for the project. The construction of the approximately 1,800 kilometre onshore pipeline section of the pipeline system may be divided into different construction contracts, TANAP Dogalgaz Iletim said in its tender announcement.