Azerbaijan and Turkey signed an agreement to construct the Trans-Anatolia Gas Pipeline (TANAP) to improve energy security, head of the section for socio-political issue of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Ali Gasanov said, Trend reports.
The project improves economic ties of Turkey and Azerbaijan, provides Europe with gas through Turkey and improves energy security. South Caucasus states, including Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and other Caspian states, will cooperate more actively.
Azerbaijan and Turkey signed the agreement to realize TANAP worth $7 billion on Tuesday. Signatures were put by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The tow states signed a memorandum on establishment of a consortium for the gas pipeline in December 2011. Gas will be transported from the Shah Deniz Field of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea to Turkey and Europe. BOTAS (Turkey) owns 20% of shares in the project, SOCAR (Azerbaijan) owns 80%. The pipeline will have a capacity of 16 billion cubic meters annually, 6 billion of them will be provided for Turkey.
Azerbaijan has 2.6 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves.
