TurkishPress: Yildiz: Turkey to hold on to TANAP, Nabucco pipeline shares

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz on Wednesday stressed the importance of Ankara's stake in two Caspian gas pipelines, telling the press that it would ensure the country's role as an energy corridor for Europe.

The minister said that Turkey's state oil firms, the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) and the Turkish Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS), would maintain their existing 20 percent stake in the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline project (TANAP), words which come amid a selloff of some of the remaining 80 percent of shares by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).

Various international news outlets this month reported that SOCAR would sell a 29 percent stake in the field to Norwegian oil firm Statoil, as well as international oil giants BP and Total.

“We plan to keep the second largest stake in the TANAP project,” Yildiz said during the press conference. The shakeup in ownership in the TANAP pipeline also comes as a major stakeholder dropped out of the parallel Nabucco pipeline on Sunday.  MORE