The 3,500km SGC network will initially transport gas from the Shah Deniz field offshore Azerbaijan to the European Union countries.
Estimated to cost $10bn, the pipeline is jointly owned by BP (12%), Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company Socar (58%), and Turkish oil and gas group Botas (30%).
The SGC project, involving 11 companies across seven countries, is being developed to reduce EU’s dependency on Russia for gas.
Expected to be commissioned in 2019, the Tanap will connect to the planned Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) that will transport gas from western Turkey to Greece, Albania and to Italy.
Turkey’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz said: "Turkey is a bridge for transporting the sources of the East to consumers in the West."
