Turkey and Azerbaijan began on Tuesday the construction of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP).

Turkish President Recep Erdogan and his Azerbaijani and Georgian counterparts Ilham Aliyev and Giorgi Margvelashvili attended the inauguration ceremony in Turkey's Kars region.

The pipeline, which will measure 1850 kilometres in length, will supplly natural gas from the Shah Deniz 2 field in Azerbaijan to Turkey and the EU.

TANAP, which is estimated to cost USD 10 B and should be completed by 2018, will link the existing South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) with the planned Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).

TANAP is part of the EU's initiative on a Southern Gas Corridor, which aims to bring supplies from the Caspian Sea and the Middle East in an effort to reduce Europe's dependency on Russian gas.

According to the partnership agreement signed last week, Azerbaijan's state-owned SOCAR and Turkish BOTAS will hold respectively 58 % and 30 % of the shares, the remaining 12 % owned by British BP.

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