Caspian Report - Issue: 07 - Spring 2014

Signing ceremony
of TANAP project.
to European Countries. Although
only Azerbaijan has committed to
supply natural gas through TANAP
at the present time, this route provides
the most cost-efficient way of
delivering natural gas from this region
to Europe. Therefore, it can reasonable
be expected that other gasrich
countries in the region, namely
Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq and Israel
will consider to use this corridor for
transmitting natural gas to Europe.
As the European Commissioner
for Energy Gunther Oettinger once
stated, total transmission capacity
of the SGC may reach to 100 bcm per
year in the future. Thus, TANAP may
transform Turkey to main transit
country.
As we mentioned above, Turkish
state-owned oil company TPAO increased
its stake in the Shah Deniz
Consortium to 19%. In addition,
considering the fact that Turkey
will have the right to re-export the
volume of natural gas supplied under
TANAP, total volume of natural
gas that Turkey can export will rich
to 10.75 bcm by 2026. Therefore,
TANAP gives Turkey not only the opportunity
to become a major transit
country, but a major player in the big
energy game in the European market.
Conclusions
In this note we briefly discussed
importance and economic benefits
of TANAP for Turkey. TANAP opens
the SGC which will be a major transit
corridor for delivering natural gas
from the Caspian Basin and Middle
East to Europe. Thus Turkey will
have the opportunity to become a
major transit country as well as a significant
player in the European energy
markets. Our analysis suggests
that TANAP will not only increase
strategic importance of Turkey but
will also bring enormous economic
benefits for Turkey. Therefore Turkey
must give full support, i.e., political,
economic and public support to
implementation of the project.
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CASPIAN REPORT, SPRING 2014