TAP started the transport of some 4,900 steel line pipes, mostly 18 meters long, from the main marshalling yard in Durres towards the Korca region, Albania, said the message on TAP’s website.

"This will enable TAP to begin 2017 construction activities on the eastern segment of the pipeline, approximately 86.5 km long, or 40 percent of TAP’s 215 km onshore section in Albania,” said the message.

The completion of the first access roads and bridges rehabilitation phase in Korca in November 2016 boosted safety conditions for the transportation of line pipes, said TAP.

To date, approximately 65 percent of the 13,000 pipes used for the onshore section of the TAP pipeline in Albania have arrived. Approximately 4,000 pipes have been transported to the Fier area, 300 to the Berat area and 300 towards the Korca area.

TAP’s contractor Spiecapag and its selected partner and subcontractor, Albanian company Diamant shpk, are undertaking this process.

TAP is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor which is one of the priority energy projects for the EU.

TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to the EU countries.

The 870-kilometer pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south.

TAP’s route through Albania will be approximately 215 km onshore and 37 km offshore in the Albanian section of the Adriatic Sea. It starts at Bilisht Qender in the Korca region at the Albanian border with Greece, and arrives at the Adriatic coast 17 km north-west of Fier, 400 meters inland from the shoreline.