LONDON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the870 km (540.59 miles) pipeline set to bring gas from Azerbaijanto Europe, has appointed BG executive Ian Bradshaw as newManaging Director to replace departing Kjetil Tungland.
Bradshaw, who will take up his new position on Feb. 1,oversaw BG's global projects portfolio, such as the recentlyopened $20.4 billion Queensland Curtis LNG project.
Tungland will return to Norwegian oil producer Statoil after heading the pipeline project for four and a halfyears on secondment.
The Azeri Shah Deniz consortium chose the TAP project inJune 2013 as its preferred route to transport gas from its hugegas field to Europe.
Three companies each own 20 percent of TAP: BP, SOCARand Statoil. Fluxys has a 19 percent share, whileEnagas owns 16 percent and Axpo owns 5 percent.
TAP is the largest project underway to bring fresh gassupplies to European buyers after Russia's Gazprom shelved planslast month to build its South Stream gas pipeline to southernEurope. (Reporting by Karolin Schaps, editing by William Hardy)