The Azerbaijani Southern Gas Corridor company has initiated meetings with potential investors in Europe and the U.S. to finance the development of infrastructure to advance four projects in the area, Azerbaijan's Finance Ministry announced Thursday.
Development of the Shah Deniz 2 gas field, Southern Gas Pipeline, Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) are the major projects for the realization of the Southern Gas Corridor project.
The Ministry decided to seek investors on Mar 7 and announced that from Mar. 10 to Mar. 16, meetings will be held in London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston.
Citi Bank, UniCredit and JP Morgan have been authorized to deploy a $1 billion Eurobond on international markets, subject to market conditions, while Lazard Freres will act as the financial advisor to the Azerbaijani company.
TAP will connect with the TANAP at the Greece-Turkey border and cross northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before going onshore in southern Italy, where it will link up with the Snam-operated Italian natural gas network.
The near 882-kilometer-long pipeline, as an extension of TANAP, will have an initial capacity of 10 billion cubic meters per year to transfer Azerbaijan’s natural gas through interconnections with other pipelines to Europe from the Turkish border.
The construction of TAP is expected to launch in May, while gas flow to Europe via Turkey is projected to begin in 2020.
By Murat Temizer
Anadolu Agency
murat.temizer@aa.com.tr