Italian-Greek JV Wins TAP Contract

A joint venture between Italy’s Renco and Greece’s Terna has won the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for two compressor stations and a metering station for the Trans Adriatic gas pipeline, the operator TAP said.

The line will deliver Caspian Sea gas to Europe, picking up where the TransAnatolian pipeline (Tanap) finishes at the Turkey-Greece border.

The JV will build one compressor station in Kipoi in Greece, near the border with Turkey; and a second at Fier in Albania. The metering station will also be in Albania, at Billisht and it will measure the flow coming from Greece.

The construction activity will start in the second half of 2016 and it will take about two.years to complete.

German engineering giant Siemens won the contract to supply six gas turbine compressor units to be incorporated into the compressor stations in September 2015.

“Renco and Terna will be responsible for further securing of additional subcontractors to implement specific parts of the contract assignments,” said TAP managing director Ian Bradshaw.

TAP plans to hold a ground-breaking ceremony to mark the start of the pipeline construction in Thessaloniki, Greece, this month.

TAP will transport natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz 2 field in Azerbaijan to Europe. The 878-km long pipeline will connect with Tanap at the Turkish-Greek border at Kipoi, cross Greece and Albania and the Adriatic sea, before coming ashore in southern Italy.

From Greece the pipeline will facilitate also gas supply to Bulgaria by interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB).

TAP’s shareholding is comprised of SD-2 operator the UK major BP, Azeri state energy giant Socar, three EU grid operators – Snam, Fluxys and Enagas – and Swiss utility Axpo, successor company to EGL. EGL and Norwegian major Statoil were the original founders of TAP, but Statoil has since sold its share in SD-2 and in TAP.

Kama Mustafayeva