TIRANA, May 23 (Reuters) - Four Balkan states backed theTrans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project on Thursday, weeks beforethe Shah Deniz 2 consortium picks between TAP and its rivalNabucco West project.
The TAP project aims to bring 10 billion cubic meters (bcm)of Azeri natural gas from the Shah Deniz 2 consortium to Europevia Italy, through Albania.
Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina joinedAlbania in backing TAP because they want it to build theIonian-Adriatic Pipeline from TAP's possible landing point inAlbania to supply them with gas since they rely on Russianimports.
Montenegro and Albania are not connected to a gas grid.
TAP competes with the Nabucco West, which would bring thegas to Austria and consists of Austria's OMV, Hungary'sMOL, Turkey's Botas and Romania's Transgaz. Germany's RWE sold its stake to OMV last year.
The shareholders of TAP are Swiss energy company Axpo,Norway's Statoil and Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas.
The Shah Deniz 2 consortium, led by BP, Statoil,Azerbaijan's SOCAR and Total, plans to begin exporting gas fromearly 2019, and has said it would announce the winning pipelineproject by the end of June.
BP (BP.)
