Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the ceremony for the laying of the TAP pipes:
Hello everyone!
It is a great pleasure to be here today, together with representatives of the company, to prove once again the added value that the pipeline brings to our country.
In an edition of May this year, “Financial Times” stated that the Southern Gas Corridor is an integral part of European Union efforts to diversify energy sources, and to ensure supply from politically stable regions.
We are as lucky as we are proud that Albania is involved in a politically stable region where, in our dimension, we do everything to promote the very political stability, and promote sustainable economic growth in the region.
We have said since the very beginning that this pipeline will bring to the territory and our community countless advantages that go beyond its basic mission. Since the first two years of work, which continue at a very satisfactory pace, we have been able to notice these advantages. Suffice to say some of them.
TAP has rehabilitated approximately 100 kilometres of roads in the areas of Korca, Fier and Çorovodë.
2 new bridges have been built and another 42 have been rehabilitated.
It has provided a job to more than 1.700 persons, of whom 90% are Albanians with an average salary of 600 Euros.
In cooperation with the Albanian authorities, the number of beneficiaries of expropriation of the land where the pipeline will pass has been updated and has increased. Even in this case, I want to underline the company’s full readiness to cooperate with a high social responsibility. Suffice it to point out that together we have completed the documentation for 13 thousand plots. In total, 17 thousand hectares, 25 thousand beneficiaries.
With the start of work for the laying of pipelines, today, TAP enters a new and very important stage of works.
There are actually 215 kilometres, through which the pipeline will traverse the country.
What is most important in terms of those advantages we have from this extraordinary operation, is that the number of employees will increase to 4200.
57 million euro for the National Domestic Production of Albania will be generated in 2017 form the construction process only. Benefits from the pipeline will increase year after year, until when the gas will start to flow in 2020.
Once it starts working, TAP is expected to increase domestic production by 160 million Euros per year, while in the next 20 years, only from this project our economy will benefit over 1 billion Euros.
We are determined to maximize the benefits of this strategic project, and we do not want to remain limited only as the Caspian gas walkway to Europe. In fact, I want to reiterate what I said earlier. We have inherited an agreement which had a huge gap for direct and symmetrical profitability with the other countries traversed by the pipeline route, in relation to communities.
I am grateful to the company that, also in this case, with a great social responsibility did not refuse, but has instead agreed to negotiate intensively with us to find a solution so that Albania, just like Greece and other countries, will have what is due in terms of the social contribution to the project.
Not only that, but on the other we already have an inclusive document. I would like once again to thank you, because I am convinced that it is never excessive in all these cases to thank publicly the Minister of Energy, whose leadership has been absolutely determined, and has taken forward with a great lucidity a process of reforms and measures that are transforming our energy sector. In this case, he has led a very important project, the national master plan for gas, anticipating a transformative process of gasification of the country for the next 20 and some years.
Once again I repeat that we do not want to be just a passageway, but we want to diversify all sources of profitability from participating in this project. The study, now finished, has envisaged that the main base of the gas supply in the future will be exactly the TAP pipeline, but it has also coordinated the use of other current resources, or those that Albania is expected to have in the future. It’s no secret that we expect good news in this regard, from the explorations that have been contracted, or those that are being contracting by our Minister of Energy.
The master plan has identified the first main area that will benefit form gas in Albania, the triangle Ballsh Fier-Patos, which is the triangle where we actually carry out this activity. This master plan envisages Fier to become a neuralgic hub of hydrocarbons and gas industry in our country, and it sees this triangle as an industrial engine of the country.
Another immediate project that has been clearly defined in the master plan is to restore the power plant in Vlora, through gas supply. A ruin that as many other ruins, with a high cost, we have inherited from the previous government, and for which pay useless but mandatory operating costs amounting to 1.2 million dollars per year, for an investment made in years that has cost to the Albanian citizens tens of millions of dollars of loan, and not only has been useless, but it continues to steal money because it is neither complete nor operative. The power plant of Vlore will be operative, and it will benefit from this work its own gas supply.
The master plan has defined also the steps for the gradual gasification of Albania, so that over the next 20-25 years the need for heating and cooking in the country will be met by gas. I’m saying over the next 20-25 years, because it is about a radical and capillary transformation of the entire functioning and organization of the energy system in our country, both for the industry and for our household customers. 25-30 years are necessary to have a full capillary extent across the territory. This will be launched as soon as the pipeline becomes operative, a model will begin to be built and then they will be extended step by step throughout the territory.
On the other hand, we are determined to share the benefits of TAP with as many countries in the region, as a way to promote economic development and political stability that is very important in view of this major continental project.
The process of cooperation launched in Berlin in 2014 between us as part of the Balkans and the European Union has opened a new era, and at the Paris Summit as part of this process in July, we took an important and concrete step further, again encouraging Albania to make the Adriatic-Ionian gas pipeline that will link Albania with Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and thanks to our insistence, with Kosovo. In this context, of particular importance was the signing in August last year, of a memorandum of understanding that lays the groundwork to further joint work forward for the new Adriatic-Ionian pipeline, signed by the energy ministers of the four countries where the pipeline will pass.
Another priority and very important project is precisely the bifurcation in Kosovo, and after the high voltage line between Albania and Kosovo is completed, the completion of this project will create eventually a unique pan-Albanian power space, integrated within Balkan and European power networks.
Improving the conditions of the contract has been our focus since the first day our government took office. We have actually had in our hands this great potential, but also a contract, frankly, written by us, the previous government, blindly, without no symmetry with other countries. We have been discussing since April with TAP representatives on the basis of concrete evidence, the differences between the TAP agreement with Albania, and the TAP agreement with Greece, where we have seen a practical example of how the deal could work better. Without going into details, because negotiations are not closed, let me repeat once again, I am very grateful to TAP representatives for their availability, social responsibility and the very positive sense they have shown in relation to Albania, and I want to believe that this very positive sense is connected with something else, which is another proof of the fact that we are building a functioning state.
Despite everything is cooked, mixed and provided to the public from the media cauldron with regard to the functioning of the state, what I have heard and what was said here by TAP representatives is that if Albania was, before the works on the project started, a question mark about how efficient the Albanian government would be, and how able Albania would be to organize all these interactions, without affecting the progress of the project due to incompetence or lack of coordination, or many other stories which we know very well that have occurred in Albania, today Albania has become a model partner. A model for how it cooperates, coordinates and ensures the quite normal continuity of the project.
There is no project without issues, and especially a project of these dimensions where there is so much interaction, but it is sure that this project has had no serious problem because of the bureaucracy, due to the well-known stories that we have inherited, or simply because of the inability of our structures to respond in real time and with professionalism to the other party which has undoubtedly high competence and outstanding professionalism.
It’s a project that is teaching a lot also to us, the people involved in it. It is a project that in addition to pipes, gas, infrastructure improvements, financial and environmental contribution, etc. brings knowledge to our people, to the experts and employees, qualifies the labour force, and makes profitability multi-dimensional.
I do not think that official TAP representatives will feel sorry, if I conclude without thanking them, for I already did, but very sincere thanks go to all Albanian employees involved in such a complex operation. For us, it really is a pleasure, not only that the Albanian employees involved in this project are well paid – their number will increase to 4.200 in 2017 from the current 1.700 – but also for the good words about them by the company. A simple truth that proves that there is a great human potential that needs care and to qualify in order to do its best. So, many thanks to the Albanian workers, from the highest levels to the best workers.
I use to talk long, and especially when I have to talk about such positive things the desire to talk longer is much stronger, so I will conclude here with gratitude, and I wish you all good luck and success on every day, and not a single moment of standstill due to the Government.
Many thanks!
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The second and intensive phase of works for the construction onshore of TAP started today in Fier with the laying of the gas pipes. In Albania, the progress made so far in the construction of TAP includes 23 kilometres of cleared passage corridors, 12 kilometres of connected tubes and 8 kilometres of welded pipes. More than 92% of auxiliary roads and bridges have been completed.
TAP is the largest energy project in Albania which puts our country on the European energy map. This project facilitates the development of the energy infrastructure of the country and the internal energy market.
“This is a key moment that highlights the strategic role of Albania as part of the Southern Gas Corridor, to bring new sources of gas in Europe. TAP has made great progress in recent years, and the facts can be seen here today”, Ian Bradshaw, TAP Managing Director said, who also ensured that TAP will continue to invest in social projects, to improve the life quality of communities along the project route.
The Minister of Energy Damian Gjiknuri defined this moment a new milestone in the construction of TAP, with the project becoming more concrete. “Albania has had some quite unfavourable conditions compared with Greece. I want to thank the company for being involved together with the Ministry of Energy in an intensive process of negotiation, which we are about to complete, to bring in a total balance the benefits of Albania, just as Greece has done”, Minister Gjiknuri underlined.
