Botas, SOCAR to finish building Turkey-Nakhichevan gas pipeline on time by Dec

BAKU. Nov 11 (Interfax) - Construction of the gas pipeline between Igdir in eastern Turkey and Nakhichevan will be completed by December 2024, State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) deputy vice president and head of SOCAR Midstream Operations LLC Polad Rustamov said.

"The Igdir-Nakhichevan gas pipeline will be ready by the end of November according to plan, after which gas supply operations [from Turkey to the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic] will begin. The pipeline's throughput capacity will be 2 million cubic meters per day, which corresponds to approximately 730 million cubic meters a year," Rustamov said in an interview with Azerbaijan's AZTV state television channel.

Small modifications could increase the pipeline's throughput capacity to 5 million cubic meters per day or 1.8 billion cubic meters a year.

SOCAR Midstream Operations, a subsidiary of SOCAR, and Turkey's Botas are implementing the project.

The ceremony marking the start of construction took place on September 25, 2023. The pipeline will supply Azerbaijani gas via Turkey to Nakhichevan, which does not have a border with Azerbaijan.

The pipeline will meet Nakhichevan's annual natural gas needs of 500 million cubic meters.

The length of the 16 inch pipeline from Igdir to Nakhichevan's Sadarak district is 97.5 kilometers, including 17.5 km in the Azerbaijani section and 80 km in the Turkish section. Within Turkey, the gas pipeline will be a continuation of the main gas pipeline running from Eastern Anatolia to Igdir.