During its scheduled four years of construction from 2015 to 2018, TAP will contribute a total of Euro 370 million to the Albanian GDP, create on average 9,900 jobs per year and generate Euro 80 million for the country’s treasury
TIRANA, Dec. 3 – If selected as the winning pipeline to bring Caspian gas to Western Europe, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which also includes Albania in its itinerary, would have a major impact on the contribution to GDP, number of jobs created and tax revenues raised, a study conducted by Oxford Economics has found out. During its scheduled four years of construction from 2015 to 2018, TAP will contribute a total of Euro 370 million to the Albanian GDP, create on average 9,900 jobs per year and generate Euro 80 million for the country’s treasury. As a result, during its expected 50 years of operation, inclusive of direct, indirect and induced impacts, the project is predicted to contribute a total of Euro 2.7 billion to the Albanian GDP, create 240 jobs per year and generate Euro 2.5 billion in tax revenues. TAP’s investment is expected to provide a range of wider, ancillary benefits to the country. The project team expects to invest some Euro 60 million in Albania’s roads and other infrastructure, helping to pave the way for further growth in the country. Similarly the pipeline will help to cement the country’s strategic objective of becoming an energy hub for South East Europe, allowing it to supply gas to the entire Balkan region.
“The release of this report is extremely timely and comprehensively quantifies the economic impact of the Trans Adriatic Pipelines’ impact on Albania. The results show that not only will the project generate considerable benefits directly, it will also deliver a substantial number of ‘spillover’ effects which will be just as, if not more, important,” says Sam Moore, Chief Operating Officer of Consulting Services of Oxford Economics.
With few months to go before Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II consortium decides on the consortium that will be selected to transport gas to Western Europe, Trans Adriatic Pipeline officials have called on Albania, Italy and Greece to intensify efforts to sign a technical agreement. The appeal came by Michael Hoffmann, TAP’s Director of External Affairs and Communications, during a meeting with Albania’s Foreign Minister Edmond Panariti in Tirana last month. “The Shah Deniz consortium is expected to make a final decision on the selection of TAP or Nabucco pipeline projects in the first quarter of 2013 and this is why we must accelerate steps to sign the technical agreement among the three interested countries maybe within this year,” said Hoffman. The deal would further improve TAP’s chances against Nabucco West, the other remaining contender in the race to become the first pipeline to deliver Azeri gas to Europe, diversifying the supply. Nabucco West would run from the Turkish border via a northerly gas hub in Austria while TAP would link to Europe via Italy.
Italy, Greece and Albania have already confirmed their political support for TAP with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in New York. Italy and Greece have decided to back the TAP project after Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II consortium, led by BP and Statoil, chose TAP and Nabucco West as the two pipelines that would be used to transport gas to Western Europe.
Albanian experts have described TAP as an opportunity that would benefit Albania both economically and politically, making it an important hub of the international gas pipeline for the Western Balkans.
TAP aims to become operational in 2017 and would carry 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Caspian gas a year and be scalable to a maximum capacity of 20 bcm.
TAP’s partners are Statoil, Swiss EGL and Germany’s E.ON Ruhrgas who say that the pipeline could create thousands of jobs.
With domestic electricity production supply heavily dependent on hydropower plants and rainfall, TAP would be another opportunity to diversify generation especially in the newly-built Vlora thermal power plant which although made available since more than one year, can only be made efficiently operational on gas because of its high cost on operating on fuel. TAP would also help the country’s gasification by offering gas, already massively used as a cheaper alternative to electricity for cooking and heating, to households. The passing of the oil pipeline through Albania would also pave the way for the construction of the Ionian-Adriatic pipeline making Albania a gas hub to other Balkan regional countries.
Entering from Greece at Miras in the Kor衠region, the Albanian section of the route stretches a total of 209km to the coast, north-west of Fier. The offshore section will be 60km in length, crossing the Adriatic Sea entering southern Italy.
Intergovernmental deal expected in early 2013
The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) expects the intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between Greece, Italy and Albania to be signed in early 2013, TAP’s Managing Director Kjetil Tungland said in interview to Natural Gas Europe this week. According to Tungland, the signing of the tripartite memorandum of understanding between the transit countries’ governments had kicked-off the negotiations between the governments on a full scale IGA on TAP.
“This is our next highest political goal to conclude the process by signing the document in early 2013,” Tungland said, adding that the Shah Deniz consortium would like to see this happening before they finally choose the pipeline for transporting Caspian gas to Europe.
