TANAP Chooses Project Contractors, Tekfen Awarded Largest Portion

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The consortium for the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP)--which will move Caspian natural gas from Shah Deniz-2 in Azerbaijan to Turkey's western border--has picked three contracting firms to build 1,800 kilometers (km) of pipeline.

According to a statement from SOCAR, Azerbaijan's state-owned oil company, Fernas Insaat (Ankara, Turkey), Sicim-Yuksel-Akkord and Tekfen Holding (Istanbul) will build the 56-inch line, which will start at the Georgia-Turkey border and run west to the Eskisehir. The companies have won a tender for three lots for 1,337 km of the pipeline route. The participating companies signed the contracts last week.

Tekfen, the Turkish conglomerate, announced that its affiliate, Tekfen Insaat, was awarded the construction of a 509-km pipeline. The 509-km stretch will cost $565 million, with planned completion in 36 months.

Fernas Insaat has secured Lot-1 for construction of a 375-km part of the TANAP line from Ardahan-Posof-Turkgozu to Erzurum/Askale.

The Sicim-Yuksel-Akkord consortium will be responsible for Lot-2, with a total length of 450 km.

The later part of the TANAP project, which runs from Eskisehir to the Turkey-Greece border, has yet to be awarded. Construction of two parallel 36-inch offshore pipelines is slated to begin in 2017, with completion by early 2018.

TANAP issued pre-qualifications for the offshore section in November. In October, a total of seven companies were awarded pipe supply contacts for the future pipeline. Turkish companies will provide 80% of the steel pipe for the project.

The initial capacity of TANAP is expected to be 16 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year. About 6 billion cubic meters of gas will be delivered to Turkey, and the remaining volume will be supplied to Europe. Future capacity of the pipeline can be increased to 31 bcm.

The gas will go to Turkey in 2018. After the construction of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the gas will reach Europe in early 2020. TANAP developers plan to commission the pipeline in 2018. The project's cost is estimated at between $10 billion and $11 billion.

Scada Tender Participants Announced
TANAP's developers also have chosen participant companies in a tender for creation of a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, and telecom systems for the project. The tender will include ABB Group (NYSE:ABB) (Zurich, Switzerland), Akkord Industry Construction - Cobra Group (Azerbaijan), Alcatel Lucent Teletas Telekomunikasyon (NYSE:ALU) (Paris, France), Havelsan (Ankara, Turkey) - Milens Iletisim Insaat, Honeywell (NYSE:HON) (Morristown, New Jersey), Otf Contracting Company (Budapest, Hungary), Prizma Grup (Ankara) - Thales Italia SpA (Rome, Italy), Telvent USA-Telvent Energia (now Schneider Electric (Rueil-Malmaison, France), and Uskom Komunikasyon Sistemleri-Siemens (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany).

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