EBRD ready to finance TAP's extension

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) could finance 75% of the total investment (1.2-1.3 billion euros) to be received from financial institutions for the expansion of the Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline (TAP), Luca Schieppati, CEO of the TAP AG consortium, said in an interview with the Italian economic newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Report informs.

“The EBRD is ready to support us if the expansion project is in line with the energy security axis, as well as the transition to green energy.

We, as an operator, see expansion as the only golden opportunity to decarbonise the infrastructure and allow it to transport low carbon gases (from biomethane to hydrogen). For this reason, we first started preliminary studies that confirm the possibility of transporting up to 10% hydrogen with minor modifications, and we are testing, among other things, in a laboratory in Holland, the compatibility of our steel and crane welds for transporting 100% hydrogen," Schieppati said.

He recalled that the deadline for doubling TAP's capacity is 2027.

"The doubling is consistent with RepowerEU (the European Commission's plan to make Europe independent of Russian fossil fuels by 2030), which includes the Southern Gas Corridor among the decisions to replace Russian gas, and with a memorandum of understanding signed in mid-July by the Azerbaijani government and the European Commission ", Schieppati noted.

On the issue of reducing carbon emissions, Schieppati said that a special plan has been prepared to reduce the limit by 6% in three years: “We are also reducing fugitive emissions, and we are also studying the possibility of connecting compressor stations to very high voltage networks and installing electric motors green energy instead of gas turbines".

The cost of the Southern Gas Corridor, including the upstream (production) part of Shah Deniz-2, amounted to about $33 billion (in 2013, the project was estimated at $45 billion). The main components of the project are: the Shah Deniz-2 project, the expansion of the South Caucasus pipeline Baku-Georgia-Turkish border, the construction of the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP) from the eastern to the western border of Turkiye and the Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline connecting Greece, Albania and southern Italy.

Azerbaijani gas supplies to Turkiye via TANAP began in the summer of 2018. The deliveries to Europe (to consumers in Italy, Greece and Bulgaria) via TAP began on December 31, 2020.