This contract award makes up more than 71,000 tonnes of offshore line pipe.
Ian Bradshaw, Managing Director at TAP, said: “With this appointment TAP has now awarded all onshore and offshore line-pipe contracts. The manufacturing process for these key project elements has already begun, which is in line with our project schedule. I want to congratulate Salzgitter Mannesmann International for its successful bid and thank all those companies that participated in this tender round.”
Salzgitter Mannesmann International GmbH is part of the Salzgitter AG Group, which was founded in 1859 and ranks as one of Europe’s leading steel and technology groups, with external sales of € 9 billion in 2014, a crude steel capacity of nearly 9 million tonnes and a workforce of more than 25,000 employees.
In 2015, TAP has awarded several contracts: construction and rehabilitation of access roads and bridges in Albania (April 2015), large diameter ball valves and actuators (July 2015), turbo compressors (September 2015), fittings, isolating joints and scraper traps (October 2015), 270km onshore line pipe and bends (October 2015), 495km of onshore line pipes (November 2015) as well as Italy onshore construction (December 2015). In March 2016, TAP awarded the onshore construction contracts.
TAP will transport natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan to Europe. The 878 km long pipeline will connect with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Turkish-Greek border at Kipoi, cross Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.
TAP’s routing can facilitate gas supply to several South Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and others. TAP’s landfall in Italy provides multiple opportunities for further transport of Caspian natural gas to some of the largest European markets such as Germany, France, the UK, Switzerland and Austria.
TAP will promote the economic development and job creation along the pipeline route; it will be a major source of foreign direct investment and it is not dependent on grants or subsidies. With first gas sales to Georgia and Turkey targeted for late 2018, first deliveries to Europe will follow approximately in early 2020.
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