ANKARA
The Russian-Turkish project for a new natural gas pipeline will not compete with the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline project, Rovnag Abdullayev, president of Azerbaijan's state-owned energy giant SOCAR, said Monday.
As a result, there is no danger of a dispute with Turkey about the project, Abdullayev said, speaking at a press conference.
"Every project in the region has its own market," he said.
The European South Stream pipeline project, which Russia has decided to renounce, would also not have competed with the Southern Gas Corridor, Abdullayev said.
The Southern Gas Corridor will break ground in 2015, and parts of the conduit will be operational by 2020. Tender offers for the Trans Anatolian Pipeline -- the section of the project -- have already been completed, and offers for the construction work are being reviewed.
The Russian-Turkish project will build a pipeline across the bottom of the Black Sea, and will build a distribution hub on the border between Greece and Turkey to bring gas to Europe. It's capacity will be 63 billion cubic meters.
The Southern Gas Corridor is an EU project for which planning began in 2008. It is comprised of several different projects, according to the website of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, with a total capacity of 120 billion cubic meters.
The gas corridor also includes the South Caucasus Pipeline, which crosses Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline over Greece, Albania and Italy.
The Southern Gas Corridor is projected to cost about $45 billion.
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