Italy must achieve energy security and independence, and this will also require doubling the capacity of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which carries natural gas from Azerbaijan to Puglia, Minister of Energy Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said, Ednews reports citing Italy’s Formiche.

“Therefore, not only having implemented TAP earlier would have brought further benefits to the country system, but now the doubling of flows would allow Italy to face the gas crisis with a very different conception of the problem (and the visit to Baku by Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto is a further demonstration of attention),” reads the article, stressing that the figures on the supply of Azerbaijani gas to Europe speak volumes.

So, in 2021, 8.1 billion cubic meters of gas were transported to Europe via TAP. In 2023, Azerbaijan expects to increase gas supplies to Europe to 12 billion cubic meters. As of 2022, Azerbaijan exported 11.4 billion cubic meters (an increase of 12.3% compared to 2021) or 51% of all supplies from Azerbaijan.

Since the start of its operation, on December 31, 2020, 18.5 billion cubic meters of gas have been transported through the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, of which almost 16 billion cubic meters were transported only to Italy. In 2022, 3 billion cubic meters more gas were supplied to Italy. Thus, Azerbaijan satisfies more than 14% of Italy’s needs in natural gas.

The construction of the TAP was completed in October 2020. The total length of TAP is 878 km, of which 550 km pass through the northern part of Greece, 215 km through the territory of Albania, 105 km along the bottom of the Adriatic Sea and 8 km through the territory of Italy. Azerbaijani gas supplies to consumers in Italy, Greece and Bulgaria through TAP began on December 31, 2020.

The TAP AG consortium is considering three scenarios for increasing the pipeline capacity: limited - up to 14.4 billion cubic meters, partial - up to 17.1 billion cubic meters and full - up to 20 billion cubic meters per year.