OREANDA-NEWS. October 24, 2011. Gas pipeline project ITGI (the pipe issue will be raised today in Baku by Minister of Environment, Energy & Climate Change Georgeos Papakostantinu of Greece with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Industry & Energy Minister Natig Aliyev) depends on the condition of Azerbaijani-Turkish relationships.

Harris Sachinis, chairman and chief officer of Greek gas corporation DEPA, says that ITGI will transport Azeri gas to Europe from the Turkish-Greek border, and the project itself and a range of its parameters depends on availability of an Azerbaijani-Turkish agreement on gas transit via Turkey.

"In addition to providing the very possibility of supplies, the total transportation tariff for gas supply to Greece, Bulgaria and Italy, as well as actual price of gas delivered to these countries depends on this agreement. That is why the transit agreement is so important," Mr. Sachinis said.

ITGI is a project with a "double bottom" that could increase 2.4-fold safely gas supply from Azerbaijan to Europe in case of availability of new sources of raw materials. Chairman and chief officer of Greek gas corporation DEPA Harris Sachinis has stated that for only 5% of the initial investment cost of ITGI the gas supplies via it can be increased from 10 bn up to 24 bn cu m.

"For this we’ll need for 40-50 million euro to build an additional jumper with Bulgaria gas pipeline system to increase gas delivery via this route from 1 bn (within Phase 1 of the project) up to 5 bn cu m a year. Greece itself is ready to increase purchases from 1 bn up to to 3 bn cu m, and it does not require capital expenditures. Increasing the supply of gas to Italy from 8 bn to 16 bn cu m will require an increase in capacity of the subsea gas pipeline to demand about 100 million euro. As a result, the final investment cost of the gas pipeline system can grow by 5% up to 1.7 bn euro," Mr. Sachinis said.

ITGI is ready to ensure by 1 bn cu m of gas delivery to Greece and Bulgaria already in 2012, and 8 bn cu m of gas to Italy in 2017.

"Further expansion of the gas pipeline will depend on the availability of additional gas volumes in Azerbaijan or the availability of gas of third parties for delivery to Europe via Turkey," Mr. Sachinis said.

He pointed out that ITGI can be considered the first phase of being created Southern gas corridor to Europe and competing project Nabucco the second stage.