BAKU
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) intends to invest about $10 billion in projects in Turkey in the next seven or eight years, the company's vice president has said.
"In view of the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP) construction project, the total amount of investments in Turkey may exceed $17 billion," Suleyman Gasimov told Thursday the 19th international conference on Caspian Oil and Gas in Baku, the Azeri capital.
Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the consortium that will build the TANAP which would supply gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas fields to Europe through Turkey.
BOTAS, Turkey's state-run oil and gas company, has a 20 per cent stake in the TANAP, and the rest of the stakes are owned by SOCAR.
The initial capacity of the TANAP will be 16 billion cubic meters and some six billion cubic meters of the volume will be bought by Turkey, while the rest will be transported to Europe.
At present, Azerbaijan is choosing a route for gas exports to Europe via Turkey. Azerbaijan is exporting gas to Turkey via the South Caucasus gas pipeline.
 intends to invest about $10 billion in projects in Turkey in the next seven or eight years.){kind=link}