TIRANA, March 8 – France’s Spiecapag has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction contract by the Trans Adriatic Pipeline for its 215 km Albania section, the consortium scheduled to bring Caspian gas to Europe says.
The French company specialized in pipelines, has been awarded two onshore lots stretching from Bilisht to Topoja, southwestern Albania, where the pipeline will be connected to Italy through the Adriatic through a 105 km offshore section.
The French company, a fully owned subsidiary of Entrepose Group, a company of the Vinci French Group, has also been awarded a contract for a 185km lot in Greece, between Kipoi and Kavala. Spiecapag will also carry out the pipeline river crossing at the Greek-Turkish border, where TAP will be connecting to the Trans Anatolian Pipeline.
Meanwhile, a joint venture comprised of Italy’s Bonatti S.p.A and Greece’s J&P AVAX S.A has been awarded the EPC contract for two lots in northern Greece. The sections cover approximately 360km of pipeline, stretching between Kavala and Ieropigi near the Albanian border.
“The contracts for the construction of our pipeline’s onshore section are the largest that TAP will award,” said Ian Bradshaw, Managing Director at TAP.
TAP has already launched its works in the Albanian section with the construction of access roads and bridges by an Albanian-Italian joint venture. Its route through Albania is approximately 215 km onshore and 37 km offshore in the Albanian section of the Adriatic Sea.
After the withdrawal of Norway’s Statoil, TAP’s shareholding will now be comprised of UK’s BP (20 percent), Azerbaijan’s SOCAR (20 percent), Italy’s Snam (20 percent), Belgium’s Fluxys (19 percent), Spain’s Enagà¡s (16 percent) and Switzerland’s Axpo (5 percent). With first gas sales to Georgia and Turkey targeted for late 2018, first deliveries to Europe will follow approximately in early 2020.
