Azerbaijan says agreement to expand TAP pipeline needed soon

BAKU. Sept 2 (Interfax) - Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev confirmed that his country had started talks with partners to expand the capacity of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, or TAP.

"This must be done in the near future, because we have reached an agreement with the European Commission on doubling gas exports from Azerbaijan to the European Union to 20 billion cubic meters by 2027. This will be impossible without expanding TAP," he told reporters on Friday during a visit to Italy."

"Only after reaching agreement on the expansion of the pipeline can negotiations be held on contracts for individual countries," he said.

Supplies of Azerbaijani gas began running through TAP to consumers in Italy, Greece, and Bulgaria on December 31, 2020. Since then, the pipeline has transported 13.5 billion cubic meters of gas - 11.7 bcm of it to Italy and the rest to Greece and Bulgaria.

TAP was built to transport natural gas from the Caspian countries and the Middle East to Western Europe. It is part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which also combines the South Caucasus Pipeline and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipelines as well as the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline, or TANAP.