On May 17 Azerbaijani Energy Minister Natig Aliyev to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) in the Greek city of Thessaloniki.

It was told in the press service of the Ministry of Energy.

The event will be attended by officials of Azerbaijan, the European Union and the United States, high-ranking officials of Greece, Turkey, Albania, Italy and Bulgaria. During the two-hour event short presentations from the delegations will be held, after which the first TAP pipe will be signed and laid. Thus, we will start the implementation of an important segment of the Southern Gas Corridor.

Notably, TAP is designed to ensure the supply of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, produced within the second phase of the development of "Shahdeniz". The length of the pipeline is 878 km.

At the Turkish-Greek border the pipeline will be connected to the Trans-Anatolian pipeline (TANAP) and will run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy. TAP initial capacity will be 10 bln cubic meters of gas per year. The first deliveries of Azerbaijani gas is planned in early 2020.