Transport is the 7th busiest airport in the Balkans, handling over 5,2 million passengers per year in 2022.
Transport has undergone significant changes in the past two decades, vastly modernising the infrastructure. Improvements to the road infrastructure, rail, urban, and airport transport have all led to a vast improvement in transportation. These upgrades have played a key role in supporting Albania's economy, which in the past decade has come to rely heavily on the construction industry. Albania's motorway network has been extensively modernised throughout the 2000s and part of it is still under construction. There are a total of 3 major motorways in Albania: the
A1,
A2, and
A3. When all corridors are completed, Albania will have an estimated 759 kilometers of highway linking it with all its neighbouring countries. The
Tirana International Airport Nënë Tereza is the main port of entry for air travellers to the country. The airport is named after the Albanian
Roman Catholic nun and missionary
Mother Teresa. It has seen a dramatic rise in passenger numbers and aircraft movements since the early 1990s. Today, the Airport handles over 5.2 million passengers per year. In April 2021,
Kukës Airport became operational in the north, serving first flights only to Istanbul and Zurich. In 2022, new destinations were announced, including
Vienna,
Basel/Mulhouse, and
Memmingen. Furthermore, Albania plans to build two other airports in the south, which will mainly serve the tourism industry. makes
its port the busiest in Albania and among the largest in the
Adriatic and
Ionian Seas. The busiest and largest
seaport is the
Port of Durrës. As of 2014, the port ranks as one of the largest passenger ports on the
Adriatic and
Ionian Sea, with an annual passenger volume of approximately 1.5 million. Other seaports include
Vlorë,
Sarandë, and
Shëngjin. The ports serve an extensive system of ferries connecting numerous islands and coastal cities in addition to ferry lines to several cities in Croatia, Greece, and Italy. The railways in Albania are administered by the national railway company
Hekurudha Shqiptare (HSH). The railway system was extensively promoted by the
totalitarian regime of
Enver Hoxha, during which time the use of private transport was effectively prohibited. Since the collapse of the former regime, there has been a considerable increase in car ownership and bus usage. Whilst some of the country's roads are still in very poor condition, there have been other developments (such as the construction of a motorway between Tirana and Durrës) that have taken much traffic away from the railways.
Energy was formed as a result of the construction of the
Fierza Hydroelectric Power Station in 1978. Albania is one of only two countries in the world (along with Paraguay) whose entire electricity production is dependent on
hydroelectric power. In 2021 electricity consumed was 6,51 billion kWh with 5.31 billion kWh produced, the rest imported. In December 2023, work commenced on a new 400
kV interconnector between Albania and
North Macedonia, designed to enhance cross-border connectivity and better integrate Albania into the regional electricity network. Hydroelectric power stations include the
Fierza,
Koman, and
Vau i Dejës plants, as well as the planned
Skavica dam, on the
Drin river and
Banjë and
Moglicë plants on the
Devoll river. The latter two were planned to increase electricity production in Albania by almost 17%. In December 2023 a 140 MW solar park, covering 200 hectares of land at Karavasta, operated by Voltalia SA, began operations. An auction in 2023 awarded 222.48 MW of onshore wind. , Greece through
Fier, Albania to San Foca, Italy The
Trans Adriatic Pipeline became operational in 2020. Its route through Albania is approximately 215 kilometers onshore and 37 km offshore in the Albanian section of the
Adriatic Sea. It starts at
Qendër Bilisht in the
Korça 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. A compressor station is near
Fier, and an additional compressor is planned near Bilisht should the capacity be expanded to 20 billion cubic meters (bcm). Eight block valve stations and one landfall station were built along its route, as well as approximately 51 km of new access roads. There were also 42 bridges refurbished and three new bridges built. In April 2009, Albania and Croatia announced a plan to jointly construct a 1,500 MWe nuclear power plant on the shores of
Lake Skadar (Lake Shkodër), near Albania's border with
Montenegro. As of 2016, Albania has no plans to build any nuclear power plants in the foreseeable future.
Oil Albania has the second largest
oil deposits in the
Balkan peninsula and the largest onshore
oil reserves in Europe. Its crude output amounted to more than 1.2 million tonnes in 2013, including 1.06 million by Canada's Bankers Petroleum, 87,063 tonnes from Canada's Stream Oil, and 37,406 tonnes by
Albpetrol on its own. Three foreign firms produced the rest. Oil exploitation in Albania began in 1928, in Kuçova Oil field and was continuously increasing and one year later in
Patos, in sandstone reservoirs. Oil production in Albania was increasing continuously. During the periods 1929–1944 and 1945–1963 the total production was only from the sandstone reservoirs, while after 1963, it was from the carbonate reservoirs. Up to 1963, the sandstones produced 400,974,649 tons of oil. Albanian oil and gas represents the most promising albeit strictly regulated sectors of the economy. It has attracted foreign investors since the early 1990s marking the beginning of reforms that transformed the public exclusive rights, control, and responsibilities with regard to exploration and exploitation, to the private sector. Oil and gas reserves still remain the property of the Albanian State which enters into agreements and grants rights with regard to evaluation, exploration, production, refining/processing, and transport of the product. In March 2016, affiliates of China's Geo-Jade Petroleum purchased the drilling rights (from a Canadian company) for exploiting the oil fields of Patos-Marinze and Kucova. They paid €384.6 million, presumably indicating an interest in accelerating the process. ==Statistics==