TAP Pipeline, exclusion from some EU rules

The three Regulation Authorities of the countries that will have TAP in their territory, Greece, Italy and Albania, published a joint opinion implemented by national-level decisions, which passes the approval of the European Commission and the positive opinion of the Energy Community Secretariat.

The rules of the internal market in the EU remand an approach of the third party in the entire energy infrastructure, including the gas pipelines. According to the Commission, TAP is a commercial initiative and not established in one of the countries it will pass through.

The shareholders invest in such a project only if they are safe that the risks will be maximally covered. The exclusion from some EU rules protects private investors from some risks and makes such a project realizable, whhat would have not been the case without this exclusion.

The Shah Deniz consortium that supplies the TAP pipeline from the Caspian Sea declared that there is also a new deadline, from January 1st to December 31st 2020. The new decision of the Commission says that the exclusion will lose its effect if the TAP construction will not have started by May 2016, and if the infrastructure is not made operational by December 31st 2020. As result, this postpones with two years the date when it enters in effect.

In 2013, when TAP secured the exclusion from some EU Gas Directives, even the approach of a third party for an initial capacity of 10 billion cubic meters a year for the gas volume from Azerbaijan, supplied by Shah Deniz, according to the respective sale agreement for a 25-year period, the Commission ha decided that the exclusion would have no effect if the Pipeline would not be functional by January 1st 2015.

Prepared by: Arta TOZAJ

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