Press Releases

MAJOR SHAREHOLDER IN THE PROJECT OF THE CENTURY

BP and the Petroleum Pipeline Company BOTAS signed the TANAP Shareholder Agreement in Ankara.

BP and BOTAS signed the Shareholder Agreement for the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project (TANAP), which aims to transport natural gas from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II field in the Caspian Sea to Turkey and then to Europe. The signing ceremony for the Shareholder Agreement was held on March 13, 2015 at the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and was attended by Taner Yıldız, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkey; Rövnag Abdullayev, President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR); Gordon Birrell, BP’s Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey; Mehmet Konuk, General Manager of BOTAS; Vagif Aliyev, Member of the Board of Directors of TANAP; and Saltuk Düzyol, General Manager of TANAP. In addition to senior officials from the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkey, SOCAR, BP, BOTAS and TANAP and the energy bureaucracy circles, Elshad Nassirov, SOCAR Vice President for Investments and Marketing and TANAP Board Member, and Afgan İsayev, General Director of the Southern Gas Corridor Closed Joint Stock Company attended the ceremony.

As a significant project for providing supply diversification and ensuring the energy supply security of Turkey and EU countries, the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project’s shareholding structure will be as follows, after the process of acquisition of shares is completed: Southern Gas Corridor Closed Joint Stock Company (SGC) 58 percent, BOTAS 30 percent, and BP 12 percent.

Within the scope of the TANAP project, gas flow to Turkey is scheduled to start in 2018 at an initial capacity of 16 billion cubic meters per year which will be gradually increased to 24 billion cubic meters and then to 31 billion cubic meters. Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II Natural Gas Field, the main source of supply for the project, is being developed by an international consortium under the leadership of BP, including TPAO as the second largest partner with its 19 percent stake. The 1,850-km long TANAP constitutes the longest part of the Southern Gas Corridor, a gas supply chain worth USD 45 billion. TANAP is planned to deliver natural gas from the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) to Europe through Greece, Albania and Italy via the Trans Adriatic Natural Gas Pipeline (TAP) as of early 2020.

TANAP has been designed to run from the Turkish village of Türkgözü in Ardahan’s Posof district on the Turkish-Georgian border, pass through 20 provinces, 67 districts and 600 villages of Ardahan, Kars, Erzurum, Erzincan, Bayburt, Gümüşhane, Giresun, Sivas, Yozgat, Kırşehir, Kırıkkale, Ankara, Eskişehir, Bilecik, Kütahya, Bursa, Balıkesir, Çanakkale, Tekirdağ and Edirne before arriving at Edirne’s İpsala district along the Turkish-Greek border, where it will be linked to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). 80 percent of the pipes will be supplied by Turkish manufacturers within the scope of the Main Line Pipes Purchase Contracts signed last October. Besides, according to the Onshore Pipeline Construction Contracts signed last December, the 56-inch part of the line, which runs for 1,334 kilometers from the Turkish-Georgian border to Eskişehir, will be built in 3 lots by a group of companies mostly consisting of Turkish and Azerbaijani contractors.