TANAP pipeline connecting Turkey and Azerbaijan begins operations

The $8bn Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) project has been brought online in Turkey.

An inauguration ceremony was conducted in Turkey’s central Eskisehir province to mark the occasion, which was attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev.

The 1,850km pipeline will transport natural gas produced in Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz-2 gas field in the Caspian Sea, as well as other fields towards the south of the sea.

The TANAP project is part of the $40bn 3,500km Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project, which seeks to transport gas from the Caspian region to Europe in order to improve the security and diversity of the EU’s energy supply.

Other sections in the SGC project include the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCPX) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).

Erdogan was quoted by The Associated Press as saying: “We are taking a historic step. We are inaugurating a project that is the ‘Silk Road’ of energy.”

The pipeline is expected to deliver six billion cubic metres of gas a year to Turkey and ten billion cubic metres to Europe.

Erdogan expects the pipeline to be connected to TAP at the Turkey-Greece border in June next year.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Sandra Oudkirk was quoted by the news agency as saying: “We take energy security for ourselves and allies and partners really seriously and we see this as an important component of the bigger energy diversification and energy security picture.”

SOCAR is the operator of the TANAP project, in partnership with BOTAŞ‎ and ‎BP‎.