BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 1 (UPI) -- The BP-led consortium working offshore Azerbaijan said Monday it started a final evaluation on the Nabucco West and Trans-Adriatic Pipeline proposals.
Both groups last week submitted bids to the consortium working in the Shah Deniz-2 natural gas field offshore Azerbaijan. BP said it's entered into a "detailed evaluation" period to determine which project makes the most commercial and technological sense.
"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 company said. "The final decision on the European pipeline is expected to be made by end of June 2013."
Nabucco's legal framework calls for an overland pipeline from the Turkish border that has a design capacity of up to 1 trillion cubic feet per year. TAP, which would cross part of the Adriatic Sea, could carry 350 billion-700 billion cubic feet per year "depending on supply and demand."
The projects are part of the Southern Corridor, a network of gas transit systems designed to break Russian dominance on the European energy sector.
