The Shah Deniz consortium announced commencement of commercial gas deliveries to Europe from the Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea offshore Azerbaijan via the newly-completed Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) pipeline system. The start of gas deliveries through the final section of the SGC – the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) – marks the full integration of the entire SGC gas value chain, stretching 3,500 kilometres from Azerbaijan to Europe.
“This is an historic milestone, with Azerbaijan and Europe now connected with a direct, safe and reliable energy link, that again demonstrates that together we can deliver the most complex mega-scale projects successfully.”
Gary Jones, bp’s regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey
Deliveries through this final stage of the system follow safe and reliable gas deliveries to regional markets from the Shah Deniz field via the first two sections of SGC – the South Caucasus Pipeline expansion (SCPx) and Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) – that started mid-2018.
The Shah Deniz field is the starting point of SGC, which has been built to deliver Caspian energy resources directly to European markets for the first time. The field is expected to supply 16 billion cubic meters of gas to markets in the region and Europe via SGC.
Shah Deniz – located in the Caspian Sea offshore Azerbaijan and discovered in 1999 – is the largest gas discovery ever made by bp.
The giant field covers approximately 860 square kilometres and had approximately 1 trillion cubic metres of gas and 2 billion barrels of condensate initially in place.
The pipelines that make up the new SGC system consist of the South Caucasus Pipeline expansion (SCPx) through Azerbaijan and Georgia – 428 km of new 48-inch pipeline through Azerbaijan; 59 km of new 48-inch pipeline and 2 new compressor stations in Georgia; TANAP – 1,300km of 56-inch pipeline and 600km of 48-inch pipeline across Turkey; and TAP – 878 km of 48-inch pipeline across Greece, Albania and Italy.
(Source: BP – Image: construction of the Southern Gas Corridor in Azebaijan/Caspian News)