Thu Apr 20, 2017 | 10:11am EDT
Reporting by Giancarlo Navach, writing by Stephen Jewkes
An Italian court has revoked an order that had halted work to remove olive trees from the pathway of a strategic pipeline that will bring central Asian gas into Europe, a lawyer involved in the case said on Thursday.
The decision paves the way for work to restart on the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) which is slated to bring 10 billion cubic metres of gas from Azerbaijan into the small Italian seaside town of San Foca in Apulia by 2020.
Opposition from the local town council and the regional government of Apulia has caused a series of delays to the project.
March 10, 2017
Julie Al-Zoubi
Ten thousand olive trees, including some as old as 400 years, will be moved from a UNESCO-recognized olive grove in Puglia, as work on the $40 billion Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) finally gets underway.
On 7th March a TAP spokesman told Reuters, “We’re going to start moving the olives in a few days.” He confirmed that the company had complied with all the regulations required to proceed with uprooting the trees. Work was due to begin on TAP last year but was delayed by strong local opposition including protests.
The spokesman confirmed that administration procedures for the removal of the trees were complete. He added that the required health checks on the trees were underway.
