DEPA Chief: ITGI Still Important to Southern Corridor

The Chairman and Chief Executive of Greek national DEPA Harry Sachinis has said that ITGI remains important to the Southern Gas Corridor, despite an announcement last week that rival TAP had been chosen as the potential Italian route for Shah Deniz II gas.

In an interview with EurActiv, Mr. Sachinis said that the decision to favour the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) over the Interconnector Turkey-Greece Italy (ITGI) was still a "provisional decision".

"Because of commercial issues and one might say for negotiation tactics, and because the suppliers have a share with TAP, they made a provisional decision - those were the words they chose – to proceed with that project," he said. "But TAP does not have all the necessary licences and approvals for it to be ready before the time that Shah Deniz II needs to make its final investment decision."

He stressed again that ITGI already had all the approvals and necessary licences needed to transport the gas, whereas TAP did not. As such, he said, ITGI remained important to the Southern Gas Corridor.

"The link between Greece and Italy is extremely important for the security of supply of southeastern Europe, because in case of any disruptions for whatever reasons, the fact that there is a pipeline connecting Greece to Italy means that all of southeastern Europe can enjoy having this kind of back-up because you can bring back from Italy - reverse flow - or even from North Africa to Italy to Greece and to all southeastern Europe," he said.

Last week, the BP-led Shah Deniz II consortium said that it had chosen TAP as the option for the transport of the Azeri gas, should the consortium choose Italy as the optimal route. Rivals Nabucco and the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP) also remain in the running.