Major gas pipeline opens in Turkey

The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, have inaugurated the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) at a ceremony held in Turkey yesterday

The development is a major step forward for the Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500 kilometre pipeline network that will carry gas from the Caspian Sea to Turkey this year, and to Europe from 2020.

TANAP is a key link in the Southern Gas Corridor and will help initially carry up to 16 billion cubic metres of Caspian gas per year to Turkey and Europe. TANAP will transport gas across the length of Turkey, through 160,000 pieces of steel tubing that together weigh more than one million tons.

The TANAP inauguration is key milestone ahead of first commercial gas deliveries to Turkey, which are expected by the middle of this year.

BP has been instrumental in the development of the Shah Deniz 2 project, which will provide gas that will flow through the Southern Gas Corridor.

Bob Dudley, BP group chief executive officer, joined dignitaries and stakeholders at the TANAP inauguration ceremony which took place in Turkey's North West city of Eskişehir.

Dudley described TANAP’s inauguration as “a key milestone in realizing the Southern Gas Corridor."