BP and its partners have started up the US$28-billion Shah Deniz 2 gas development in Azerbaijan which is the starting point of the Southern Gas Corridor for gas supplies into Europe and which is expected to reduce European dependence on Russian gas.
The Southern Gas Corridor consists of several separate energy projects with a total investment of around US$40 billion. Apart from the Shah Deniz 2 development, the Corridor will include three pipelines-the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCPX) to Azerbaijan and Georgia; the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) to Turkey; and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) planned to cross Greece, Albania, and end up in Italy.
From the South Caucasus pipeline, gas will be transported across Turkey through the new Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), and, when complete, TAP will then supply gas as far as Greece, Albania, and Italy. Commercial deliveries to Europe are expected to begin in 2020, delivering natural gas from the Caspian Sea direct to European markets, BP said in a statement today.
Shah Deniz, in the Caspian Sea offshore Azerbaijan, is the largest gas discovery ever made by BP, in 1999. The first phase of field development, Shah Deniz 1, started gas production in 2006 and currently supplies gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey.
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BP is the operator of the Shah Deniz consortium with a 28.8-percent stake, TPAO has 19 percent, Petronas 15.5 percent, AzSD 10.0 percent, SGC Upstream 6.7 percent, Lukoil 10 percent, and NICO another 10 percent.
"Together with the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline system, Shah Deniz 2 will deliver significant new energy supplies to Europe, further diversifying its sources of energy and providing new supplies of natural gas which will be essential in the energy transition," BP group chief executive Bob Dudley said.
"As our largest start-up for the year, Shah Deniz 2 is also a very important milestone in delivering our plans for growth, including from our pipeline of new higher-margin projects," said Bernard Looney, BP's chief executive, Upstream.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More