4 EU Countries Setting Up Working Group For Project To Boost Azerbaijani Gas Imports

(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 18. A working group will be created for the project to boost gas supplies from Azerbaijan, Slovakian Ministry of Economy told trend .

Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria have asked the European Commission to allocate funds for developing infrastructure to get additional natural gas from Azerbaijan. It is about developing the existing infrastructure, construction of new interconnectors and expanding the capacity of the existing ones.

'The involved stakeholders are going to establish a technical working group in order to prepare the project technical study for open season. Further project development will depend on the outcomes of the technical study and open season.

Diversification of gas supply is a persistent and pressing issue. Following the recent negative geopolitical developments and 'weaponisation' of gas supply to the EU, our suppliers acted quickly to ensure substitution for Russian gas deliveries. Our biggest supplier was able to conclude contracts that substitute almost 2/3 of the Russian gas including LNG and alternative pipeline gas. Given the market dynamics, it is difficult to talk about concrete future volumes. Nevertheless, according to the IEA, the EU could face a shortage of 30 bcm this year. The infrastructure bottlenecks represent barriers to supply additional gas volumes to our internal gas market. Therefore, the abovementioned initiative of 4 TSO is important and should be supported in order to deliver the Azeri gas where it is needed most,' said the ministry.

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