Turkey and Azerbaijan agree to launch TANAP gas pipeline

The Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline, through which gas from Azerbaijan will be delivered to Turkey and further to Europe, will start working on June 12, the Turkish Energy Minister has announced.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Azerbaijan is going to start exploiting the "Shah Deniz" gas field. Russia offered Azerbaijan to purchase the entire extracted volume of gas from this field. However, Baku supported the project of the Southern Gas Corridor and signed an agreement on the construction of the TANAP gas pipeline with Ankara. The BP Company announced the start of delivery of Azerbaijani gas to Turkey on June 30, 2018.

Azerbaijani gas will reach Europe in 2020, Ilham Shaban, the head of the "Caspian Barrel" Oil Research Centre, has suggested.

The "Hurriyet" newspaper reports, with reference to Berat Albairak, the Turkish Energy Minister, that in summer Turkey will start deep-sea drilling in the Mediterranean.

As of April 20, Azerbaijan had invested 78.1% of its participation share in the Southern Gas Corridor project, which makes a total of 11.5 billion US dollars, the "Trend" reports.