Turkey and Azerbaijan have agreed to build the 16-billion cu m/year Trans-Anatolian natural gas pipeline, transporting Azeri gas through Turkey to Europe. Turkey will have access to as much as 10 bcm/year of the gas.
The pipeline would extend 2,400 miles at an estimated cost of $5 billion. Gas would be sourced from the BP PLC-operated Shah Deniz II field in the Caspian Sea roughly 70 km southeast of Baku. The field has a target start-up date of yearend 2017.
The Trans-Anatolian pipeline was originally proposed in November 2011 as the non-European Union segment of a Southern Corridor natural gas pipeline to supplant the OMV-led Nabucco pipeline project (OGJ, Feb. 6, 2012, p. 108). Nabucco has since scaled back to run from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. Other options to transport gas to Europe include the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline to Italy and the South East Europe Pipeline through Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania.
BP has said a final transportation selection will be made in 2013 (OGJ Online, Apr. 18, 2012). BP’s partners in Shah Deniz II are Statoil 25.5%, State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic 10%, Lukoil 10%, Total 10%, Naftiran Intertrade Co. 10%, and Turkish Petroleum AO 9%. BP’s share is 25.5%.