US Supports Expansion Of Southern Gas Corridor - Kimberly Harrington
(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 1. The US certainly
supports the expansion of the Southern gas Corridor, and certainly
supports Azerbaijan and the EU agreeing to double gas exports and
sees the Southern Gas Corridor as obviously foundational to
achieving that goal, Kimberly D. Harrington, Deputy Assistant
Secretary for the Bureau of energy Resources of the US State
Department, said in an exclusive interview with Trend , as she has
visited Baku to take part in the 10th meeting of the Southern Gas
Corridor Advisory Council.
"European energy security is only bolstered by diversification
and bolstered by more routes, enhanced routes like the Southern Gas
Corridor. We really want to make sure that our partners and allies
are not subject to the weaponization of energy as we have seen.
We've seen more interconnectors come online in Europe recently,
including the interconnector Greece-Bulgaria by which Azerbaijani
gas is flowing. The more Azerbaijani gas gets to more parts of
Europe, the better as far as we're concerned. That connector is
operating in an area where Russia had a near monopoly before. We'll
continue to really support these efforts. And we think this
expansion of Azerbaijani gas is going to make a difference for a
lot of countries," she said.
The Bureau of Energy Resources serves at the nexus of energy
security, decarbonization, and energy access for the State
Department. One of our first projects that we really pushed, that
was foundational to the creation of our bureau was the Southern Gas
Corridor. We always say that Azerbaijan is in the DNA of our
bureau, and it truly is. Now between the ministerial and Azerbaijan
hosting COP, these two foundational goals are centered here in
Baku. It's really delightful to be here. The US government is very
proud of the role that it had for over a decade in supporting the
Southern Gas Corridor and, of course, its final stages of becoming
fully operational in 2020," she said.
Harrington noted that she was at Sangachal, and saw the
pipeline, which is signed by a number of officials, including one
from the US government.
"I think that it just goes to show that a long-term goal of our
bureau has been to bolster energy security in the region. And that
really means diversifying routes and diversifying access, so that
no country is overly dependent on a single source for its energy
resources. Europe very rightly has some important goals to wean
itself off Russian oil and Russian gas. In fact, one of its primary
goals is to wean itself off Russian gas completely by 2027. The
more diversity of resources, the more they can help advance that
goal and we see the Southern Gas Corridor as part of that. I think
there's still work to be done for Europe to be able to achieve that
goal. But, in short, our goals with the Southern Gas Corridor now
are the same as they were a decade ago when the bureau was founded
to diversify energy resources for our partners and allies," she
said.
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