Turkey and Azerbaijan have begun the construction on a new gas pipeline costing $10 billion which will pump gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz 2 field across Anatolia to Turkish and European Union (EU) consumers.
 
The EU, whose energy commissioner Maros Sefcovic was at the ceremony, is backing the project as part of its Southern Corridor policy to bring gas from new eastern markets and reduce dependence on Russia for supplies, said the Dunya News report.

The 1,850-km Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (Tanap) pipeline - which is due to be completed in 2018 - will link up to the existing South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), which links Turkey to the Azerbaijani gas fields in the Caspian Sea through Georgia.

The backers of the project expect that the Tanap will then link up with the planned Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) that will bring the gas from western Turkey to Greece, Albania and across the Adriatic to Italy.