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France’s Total SA and Norway’s Statoil are pulling back from the planned Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (Tanap) over soaring cost estimates, paving the way for Turkish companies to raise their stakes in the project, Azerbaijani news agency APA reports.

Statoil was planning to acquire a 12% stake and Total a 5% stake in Tanap, which would bring Azeri natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe, but both companies now say they have dropped their interest.

Thus, the safety stocks proposed by the above mentioned companies will be distributed between SOCAR, BP, Turkish TPAO and BOTAŞ. As a result, the Turkish side received a great chance to further increase its stake in the project.

As APA notes, earlier Turkey has expressed interest in raising its stake in Tanap to 30%. The share of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan in TANAP project is 80%, Turkey’s share is 20%. Azerbaijan is going to give 12% of its shares to BP, 12% to Statoil and 5% to Total.

The agency reminds that the construction of TANAP will be likely started in 2014. The construction will be completed in 2017-2018. The planned capacity of the pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year at the initial stage. 6 billion cu m will be sold to Turkey, the rest to Europe.

As the news agency Turan notes SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev stated that the consent has been given to increase Turkey’s share in the project from 20% to 30%.

Note that on April 8, 2013, during the meeting of the President of SOCAR Azerbaijan Rovnag Abdullayev with the Energy Minister Taner Yildiz the new cost of the project TANAP was promulgated - $ 10-12 billion. Earlier SOCAR leadership stated that the construction of TANAP would cost 7-8 billion dollars.

TAP and TANAP gas pipeline will be used for the delivery of gas to Europe from the "Shah Deniz-2" field in Azerbaijan.