Southern Gas Corridor Route

On May 29, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev officially inaugurated the first phase of the long-awaited flagship project Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), through which Caspian natural gas from the Shah-Deniz II field will be transported to Europe. The new project consists of several pipeline networks that pass through Georgia and Turkey (via the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline, TANAP) and further through Greece, Albania and Italy (via the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, TAP). As Shah Deniz Stage 2 is implemented, gas production will increase from 9 to 25 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year.

BACKGROUND: A decade ago, the European Commission issued its Energy and Solidarity Action Plan, which set a clear target to help Eastern European countries boost and diversify their gas imports. The Southern Gas Corridor project is the backbone of this strategy to decrease Europe’s dependency on gas imports from Russia substantially. This has been a growing concern for policymakers ever since a conflict between Gazprom and the Ukrainian government interrupted supplies in the winter of 2006. Continue reading →