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Azerbaijan’s national oil and gas company SOCAR has completed the construction of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) gas interconnector, which is now ready to export Azerbaijani gas to Europe. The 1,850-km-long gas pipeline stretches between the Turkish Posof district of Ardahan and the Greek border in the Ipsala district of Edirne. It will export gas to Europe via Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), once this pipeline is commissioned.

Designed to have an initial capacity of 16 bcm/year, the TANAP pipeline is aimed at delivering 6 bcm/year of gas to the Turkish market and 10 bcm/year to Europe. The Southern Gas Corridor (SGC, a joint venture of SOCAR with 49% and the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan with 51%) holds a 51% interest in TANAP, in partnership with Turkey’s Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ) (30%), BP (12%) and SOCAR (7%). The pipeline ships natural gas from the Shah Deniz 2 gas field in Azerbaijan and started commercial delivery of natural gas in July 2018.

Gazprom-led Nord Stream 2 has decided to withdraw its application for the 2017 route through Danish territorial waters south of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, which had been under approval process for the last two years.

The National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) and the Electric Energy Trading Chamber (CCEE) of Brazil have released the results of the Auction A-4 2019, which will attract BRL 1,982bn of investments (US$495m) to be commissioned within 4 years.

The Governor of Maine (1.3 million inhabitants, United States) has signed into law three bills that will support renewable energies and fight climate change in the State. The first bill establishes the Maine Climate Council, which will be in charge of developing action plans to reduce the State’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 45% by 2030 and by 80% by 2050.

The government of the Netherlands has sent its National Climate Agreement to the Parliament. The Agreement aims to halve domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels and to divide the financial impact of emissions cuts fairly between citizens and businesses, by shifting the financial burden from households to companies.

According to the Belgian power transmission network operator Elia, Belgium needs to add 3.9 GW of new power capacity (up from a previous estimate of 3.6 GW) to cope with the planned nuclear exit by 2025. Even if two reactors (2 GW) remained opened after 2025-2026, the power grid would still require new capacity.

Novatek has agreed to sell a 10% stake in its 19.8 Mt/year Arctic LNG 2 project in northern Russia to a consortium of Japanese companies Mitsui and Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC). The two companies will also secure a long-term offtake of approximately 2 Mt/year of LNG. The acquisition is expected to complete soon, pending approval of relevant government authorities.

Guangdong Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company Limited (TNPJVC), the joint venture of China General Nuclear (CGN, 70%) and EDF (30%), has connected the second reactor of the Taishan nuclear power project in Guangdong (southeastern China) to the Chinese power transmission network. The project features two Areva’s European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) reactors of 1,750 MW each.