GE to deliver turbomachinery for Azerbaijan-Europe pipeline project

US-based General Electric's oil and gas unit has secured a contract to supply turbomachinery for the first phase of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) project, which is being built for gas transportation from Azerbaijan to Europe. GE Oil & Gas will deliver aeroderivative gas turbine driven centrifugal compressor packages, which are expected to be completed in 2017. Manufacturing and testing for the equipment will be done in Florence, Italy.

Expected to involve an investment of $11.7bn, the pipeline will stretch about 1,850 kilometers. Once operational, the pipeline is expected to supply uninterrupted gas flow from Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan to Europe through Turkey. The first phase of the TANAP project has been scheduled to be operational from 2018. It will involve construction for 1,334km of pipeline from the Turkish-Georgian border to Eskishehir province.

Tanap is being developed by a partnership formed by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Turkey's state-owned BOTAS (Petroleum Pipeline Corporation), and UK's BP. GE Oil & Gas Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) president and CEO Rami Qasem said, "This underlines our long-term commitment to Turkey where GE has been driving several localization initiatives as part of its $900m investment announced in 2012 in support of Turkey's Vision 2023.”