The Shah Deniz consortium has begun evaluating final offers it has received from the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) for transportation of Shah Deniz Stage 2 gas to Europe.
The submissions allow the Shah Deniz consortium to conduct the final evaluation of each of the transportation options and make an informed decision on the preferred export route to Europe. The final decision on the European pipeline is expected to be made by end of June 2013.
The transportation offers include substantial information about the technical, regulatory, financial and other aspects of the Nabucco West and TAP projects. The consortium now enters a phase of detailed evaluation during which the offers will be assessed against the publicly communicated selection principles. Those are: commerciality, project deliverability, financial deliverability, engineering design, alignment and transparency, operability, scalability and public policy considerations. Clarification meetings will be held with each of the pipeline companies.
The transportation offers are expected to become legally binding by end of April 2013. In the next month the Shah Deniz consortium also expects to receive binding gas sales offers from potential gas buyers in Europe.
[mappress] LNG World News Staff, April 02, 2013; Image: TAP