Analyst: Turkey best option for Israeli gas

The most practical option for Israeli gas to be transferred to Europe is via Turkey, a leading natural gas analyst has said. "The most feasible way of transporting Israeli gas to Europe is by the southern gas corridor through Turkey," Michael Hoffmann, director of external affairs of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), said at the European Energy Summit in Istanbul on Wednesday. There are three ways of transporting the natural gas Israel will produce in the Mediterranean to Europe. One is transporting the gas after first transforming it into liquid form as LNG. The gas can also be transported to Europe after being converted to electricity. But according to Hoffmann, who spoke on the first day of the two-day summit, transporting the gas through Turkey is the best option out of the three possibilities. Hoffmann, who was invited to attend the summit by the Istanbul-based Caspian Strategy Institute (HASEN), also underlined that the TAP project has reinforced Turkey's hand in becoming an energy corridor. Stating that the final decision for the implementation of the project will be taken in November by the TAP shareholders, he said the capacity of the project will be increased to 20 billion cubic meters in the future. TAP, a 791-kilometer-long pipeline project recently selected over the Nabucco project, is to transport natural gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II field across Turkey to the European market via Greece. At the beginning, the pipeline will carry 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year, keeping 6 billion cubic meters in Turkey while transporting 10 billion cubic meters to European markets. The gas will be transported to southern Italy via an undersea pipeline that will be built in the Adriatic Sea between Albania and Italy, as part of the project. The construction of the pipeline is expected to begin in 2015, and gas will begin flowing down the line in 2019.