Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline

Turkish Energy Minister Berat Albaicar predicts that Europe can expect the start of gas supplies from Azerbaijan in 2020, informs BGNews quoted by NOVA.

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced Friday the Turkish Stream gas pipeline would be discussed during his upcoming visit to Turkey and possibly also in Thessaloniki.

Vucic said he would meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and possibly once again with Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov, to discuss a Turkish Stream route to Hungary via Serbia.

Azeri Energy Minister Natig Aliyev died on June 9, a day after being transferred to hospital in Istanbul for treatment for a heart complaint, Azeri news agency APA-Economics reported.

The 69-year-old veteran executive in Azerbaijan's energy sector was president of state energy company SOCAR and chaired the company's board of directors between 1993 and 2005.

Azerbaijan's state-run energy company SOCAR, a majority stakeholder of Turkish petrochemical maker Petkim, is aiming to make an additional investment worth up to $3 billion in Turkey, SOCAR Turkey chair Vagif Aliyev has said.

"SOCAR is working on a new investment for petrochemical products. The new facility may become a second Petkim," Aliyev said in an interview in Baku.

Gas from Turkmenistan could be transferred to other countries through Turkey once the Southern Gas Corridor is commissioned, the head of the Transit Petroleum Pipeline Department at Turkey's Energy and Natural Resources Ministry said May 30.

BP plans to complete by mid-2018 the Georgian section of a $40-billion strategic pipeline bringing Caspian gas from Azerbaijan into Europe, the British energy company's country manager for Georgia said.

"We could have Israeli gas in Turkey in the next three to four years," said Shaul Meridor, the Israeli Energy Ministry's director general, at the eighth annual Atlantic Council Istanbul Summit. 

The Southern Gas Corridor will start pumping gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe by 2020, its backers said on Thursday, despite the risk of delays to this option for reducing dependence on Russia.

Politicians and ministers meeting in Baku backed the $40 billion, 3,500-kilometer chain of pipelines, a step toward curbing Russia's one-third share of Europe's natural gas market.

Azerbaijan aims to finalize the Southern Gas Corridor by 2020, Azerbaijani President İlham Aliyev has said.

The Southern Gas Corridor includes the South Caucasus Pipeline, Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).      

Gazprom's bid to tap into a pipeline meant to wean Europe off Russian gas threatens to undermine a pillar of European energy policy and slow plans to develop rival deposits in the east Mediterranean.

As the European Union struggles against the "iron embrace" of Russian pipelines, it has made opening a new Southern GasCorridor to carry gas from Azerbaijan by 2020 a priority.