Ukraine is prepared to take part in the building of the Trans-Anadolu Pipeline (TANAP), Energy and Coal Industry Minister Eduard Stavytsky said.

"Ukraine's involvement in TANAP is now being considered. We have proposed an option of participation as both the investment component and the involvement of our companies in producing pipe, and also a new branch factoring in our gas-transport system and our storage facilities in western Ukraine," Stavytsky told the press after Ukrainian-Azerbaijani talks on Monday.

He said he thinks that the successful implementation of this project is of interest to Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, and countries in the European Union.

As to the prospects for the delivery of liquefied gas from Azerbaijan, the minister said, "It cannot be said that this question has been discussed haphazardly. We have a working group set up that will soon be working on the subject of this project."

TANAP will transport Azerbaijani gas from the Georgian-Turkish border to Turkey's western border as part of Stage-2 of the Shah Deniz project. The new gas pipeline is expected to have throughput capacity of at least 16 billion cubic meters - 10 billion cubic meters for Europe and 6 bcm for western Turkey. The cost of the project is estimated at $10 billion-$11 billion. Turkish BOTAS and TPAO own 20% of the TANAP project, and SOCAR has 80%. SOCAR intends to keep 51% of the project for itself and is in talks to reassign the remaining 29% with BP (12%), Statoil (12%) and Total (5%).