Erdogan to Inaugurate TANAP

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will inaugurate the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) on June 12 in central Turkey, the country’s presidency announced on Sunday.

“The opening ceremony of TANAP is expected to be held in Eskisehir on June 12 under the auspices of our president Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” a statement by the presidency’s press office read, Anadolu Agency reported.

The opening ceremony will host government and state heads, energy ministers, executives of energy companies and senior bureaucrats from shareholder and friendly countries, the statement said. The TANAP project aims to transport the natural gas produced in Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz-2 Gas Field in the Caspian Sea and in other fields in the south of the Caspian Sea first to Turkey and then to Europe, it added.

Marking the efforts to further regional cooperation among Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the statement said the countries have engaged in major projects in recent years that would integrate the Caspian basin with the world.

TANAP, with around $8.5 billion of investment, will deliver 6 billion cubic meters of Azeri gas to Turkey and 10 billion to Europe per year. The European part of the project is expected to be up and running in 2020. Contracts for the supply of pipes for the construction of TANAP were signed with six Turkish and one Chinese company in Turkey’s Ankara city on Oct.14, 2014.

Turkey’s Mannesmann-Noksel-Erciyas and Umran-Emek consortiums, and Toscelik Profil ve Sac Endustrisi, as well as the Chinese contractor Baosteel Europe won the tender for the supply of pipes for the TANAP project. All the companies that participated in the construction and supply of the TANAP project were exempt from the value added tax.