Trans Adriatic Pipeline Expands 2026 Capacity to Boost Azerbaijani Gas Flows to Italy and Albania

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the final leg of Azerbaijan's Southern Gas Corridor that delivers Caspian natural gas into Southern Europe, has commenced a planned capacity expansion in 2026 that will add 1.2 billion cubic metres per year to the pipeline's annual throughput. The expansion, which involves compression upgrades and loopline additions at key intervals along TAP's 878-kilometre route through Greece, Albania, and under the Adriatic Sea to Italy, is the most significant technical investment in the pipeline since it entered commercial service in 2020.

Of the 1.2 billion cubic metre capacity addition, 1.04 billion cubic metres have been reserved for Italy — Europe's third-largest natural gas consumer and the primary market for Azerbaijani corridor gas. Albania will receive the remaining 0.16 billion cubic metres, incrementally improving the country's energy security situation and reducing its dependence on spot LNG imports. The expanded capacity brings TAP's total annual throughput to 11.2 billion cubic metres, and the pipeline's operator has confirmed plans to double capacity to 20 billion cubic metres by 2027 through a second, more substantial expansion programme.

The timing of the expansion is strategically significant. Italy consumed approximately 68 billion cubic metres of gas in 2025, with domestic production meeting less than 5% of that demand. The country has been working intensively to diversify supply sources following the reduction of Russian volumes post-2022, signing agreements with Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Congo, and — via TAP — Azerbaijan. The 1.04 billion cubic metre TAP addition represents roughly 1.5% of Italy's total annual gas consumption, a meaningful contribution from a source that Rome regards as among the most geopolitically reliable in its supply portfolio.

The 2027 doubling plan, if executed on schedule, would transform TAP from a supplementary supply source into a primary import route for Southern Europe. A 20 billion cubic metre annual capacity would make the Southern Gas Corridor equivalent to roughly a third of Italy's total annual gas demand, fundamentally reshaping the country's supply architecture and significantly deepening the commercial relationship between Rome and Baku. The expansion would also create headroom for new long-term supply contracts with customers in the Balkans, Austria, and potentially Germany.

Azerbaijan's upstream development pipeline supports the increased demand. The Shah Deniz Compression (SDC) project, currently under construction at the Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea, will unlock an additional 50 billion cubic metres of cumulative export potential over the coming decades, providing the gas volumes needed to fill expanded TAP capacity. Four additional non-associated gas development projects are in advanced planning stages at the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block, the Umid-2 field, the Absheron field, and the Babek structure.

For BP, TotalEnergies, and the other international partners in the Shah Deniz consortium, the TAP expansion represents a positive development that increases the commercial value of their upstream positions. The Shah Deniz field remains one of the most prolific gas assets in the Caspian region, with reserves estimated at over 1.2 trillion cubic metres, and the ability to deliver those reserves through expanded pipeline capacity at commercially competitive tariffs was a key consideration in the consortium's long-term investment planning.

The expansion also aligns with the EU's REPowerEU strategy, which explicitly targets increased Azerbaijani gas volumes as a component of Europe's post-Russia energy transition. According to the Astana Times, cumulative gas deliveries through the Southern Gas Corridor have now exceeded 91.4 billion cubic metres. Full technical details of the expansion programme are available from the Caspian Policy Centre.

For energy market participants, the TAP expansion reinforces a central thesis about the Southern Gas Corridor: it is not a fixed piece of infrastructure serving static volumes, but a dynamic system capable of significant scale-up as commercial demand and upstream production grow together. The 2026 expansion is the first of what is likely to be a series of capacity additions that will progressively transform the corridor into a primary energy artery for Southern and Central Europe.

Further Reading

• Azerbaijan Boosts Gas Exports to Europe by 56% as Southern Gas Corridor Expands
• Azerbaijan Begins Gas Exports to Germany as SOCAR Signs Decade-Long Supply Deal