Turkey focuses on Azeri gas and TANAP – V. Mikhailov

In September following the President, R. Erdogan, a new Prime Minister of Turkey, A. Davutoglu, visited Azerbaijan. He connected his visit to the ceremony of the construction start of the TANAP by which it is planned to ship gas from the Azeri deposit Shakh-Deniz to Europe. The project was represented as the expansion of the existing gas pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum in the framework of the Southern Gas Corridor. The construction start was nominal as it is planned to ship the Azeri gas to Erzurum by TANAP with the use of the already existing capacities. The works on the adaptation of the existing pipe to the pumping of the additional volume should start on April 1st 2015.

The ceremony was held in Baku on September 20th on the day of the 20th anniversary of signing in 1994 of the “contract of the century” that meant the foundation of the consortium of the western companies for the development of oil deposits “Azeri-Chirag-Gyuneshli”. The continuation of the “contract of the century” aimed for the Azeri oil transportation by passing Russia was the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline put into operation in 2006 …