(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 17. Additional gas
volumes to Europe from Azerbaijan could help to ease the
cost-of-living crisis, Tatiana Khanberg, Director Strategic
Communications and Membership, at the International gas Union (IGU)
told Trend .
"Europe is not out of the woods in the energy crisis, and so
far, luckily the weather has been on its side. Mild winter
temperatures and high storage levels cooled the prices from last
the peaks of the last two years; however, the market fundamentals
remain very tight and this equilibrium is fragile. The additional
pipeline and gas volumes through the Southern Gas Corridor as
suggested, would provide greater energy security, while improving
affordability and an improved flexibility – which is always
positive for the market. Additional gas volumes to Europe from
Azerbaijan could help to ease the cost-of-living crisis and support
reopening of the industry which had to close due to the earlier
price crunches," said Khanberg.
She pointed out that increased pipeline capacity also reduces
the challenge of bottlenecking, which has plagued Europe after its
split from Russian pipelines.
"The European energy market will continue to evolve, as policy
promotes decarbonisation needed to meet ambitious climate goals.
Natural gas infrastructure is integral to enable an affordable,
secure, and sustainable -- in every sense of the word -- energy
transition. Natural gas is critical for maintaining energy system
stability, and it is the best option for meeting the increasing
needs for flexibility to integrate the planned tripling of
renewables. As the gas industry too is working on decarbonisation,
gas infrastructure also provides a major vehicle for delivering low
and zero-carbon energy as the shares of renewable and decarbonised
gases increases.
More gas infrastructure is needed for a secure energy
transition, and it is good to see that perhaps the lessons of the
last two years are bearing fruit of positive developments, like
this one," added Khanberg.
In an interview with local TV channels on January 10,
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev said that so far, Georgia,
Türkiye, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Hungary have already
joined Azerbaijan's gas system, various interconnectors have been
created, and the driving force of all these interconnectors has
been the Southern Gas Corridor.
"Because if we hadn't come up with this initiative in good time,
and not only with the initiative, if we hadn't implemented it, of
course, there would be no talk of any interconnector today. All
these interconnectors, including Greece-Bulgaria and
Bulgaria-Serbia, Romania and Hungary, are branches of the Southern
Gas Corridor. So, today eight countries are buying Azerbaijan's
gas, six of them are European countries. The number of these
countries will further increase in the future. Because we are now
involved in talks with several European countries, and I can say
that the negotiations are at an important stage.
The demand is there and will continue to grow, we have the
resources, the "Shahdeniz" gas field is the largest gas-condensate
field in the world. We started last year, but 1.5 billion cubic
meters of gas will be extracted from the Absheron gas field this
year. This is an additional resource for us. After that, at least
such a task has been set before the end of this year, by December,
I hope that first gas will be produced from the
Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field as part of a project called "Deep Gas".
The potential is quite immense there too.
We have other projects and the second phase of the "Absheron"
gas field – a decision must also be made on that as well, i.e. an
investment decision. If this decision is made, and I am sure it
will be, the volume of annual production from "Absheron" will be 5
billion cubic meters. This is a very high figure. Apart from that,
"Shafag", "Asiman", "Umid", "Babek", "Nakhchivan", "Karabakh" –
preparation work is underway on all these fields, and their
resource base is quite large.
In other words, when I once said that Azerbaijan would continue
to be an important partner even after 100 years, I meant exactly
that, and today it is coming true. I must also state that the
Southern Gas Corridor is now operating at full capacity, and if we
want to send additional gas volumes through this corridor, it must
be expanded. Of course, additional funds should be invested there,
but it can be expanded by means of pump stations, and there is
demand. In principle, the creation of a new gas infrastructure in
Azerbaijan can be considered in the future, and we are also
considering this," said President Ilham Aliyev.
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