Greece, Italy and Albania signed an agreement on Wednesday for a pipeline project they hope will deliver natural gas from the Caspian Sea to the European Union, dpa reported. The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project was signed by Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos, Albanian Finance and Energy Minister Edmond Haxhinasto and Italian Development Minister Corrado Passera. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who was present at the signing ceremony said the project is of "great strategic significance for Greece and stands to create more than 2,000 jobs for the country." The 1.5-billion-euro (2.02-billion-dollar) scheme is designed to transport gas from the Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan, taking it via Greece and Albania across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into western Europe. The 800-kilometre pipeline would have an annual capacity of between 10 to 20 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year. TAP, developed by a consortium comprising Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas AG, Norway's Statoil and Switzerland's Axpo, is one of two proposed pipelines competing to pipe Azerbaijani gas to western European markets. Shah Deniz, Azerbaijan's biggest gas field, is estimated to contain 1.2 trillion cubic metres of gas. It is being developed by a consortium including Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Azeri state energy firm SOCAR and France's Total. The Shah Deniz consortium is expected to choose by mid-2013 whether to pipe gas to Italy through the TAP or to Austria via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary through the rival Nabucco West pipeline. Whichever pipeline is selected is expected to bring billions of euros in investments to the countries through which it travels.
