The issue of reduction of dependence of the European countries on the Russian gas deliveries has become urgent, as the relationships between the West and Russia have aggravated after the events in Ukraine. Can the West count on Azerbaijan in his matter?
“If the West makes active steps to fund small pipelines, then implementation of such projects is very real and Azerbaijan will not stay aside,” said Ilham Shaban, head of the Centre of Oil Studies of Azerbaijan.
He said at present Azerbaijan has excess of gas – over 2 billion cub.m. of natural gas is left in the underground gas storages every year. Gas production could be increased by additional 700-800 million cub.m. as a part of the Shah-Deniz 1 project (9.7 billion cub.m. was extracted in 2013). South Caucasian gas pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum is able to transport up to 7.5 billion cub.m. of gas, though in 2013 Turkey bought only 4 billion cub.m. of gas and 600 million cub.m. was delivered to the Georgian market. The pipeline has the capacity to transport additional volume of Azerbaijani gas to the European border via BOTAS system in Turkey,” Shaban explained.
Shaban believes that one part of the Azerbaijan gas could be easily delivered to the Greek market, because Turkey and Greece have a pipeline. Then it is possible to build the interconnector either between Greece and Bulgaria, or between Turkey and Bulgaria. Their length will be about 200 km and several months will be needed for their construction. “In theory, by 2015 these countries could become importers of Azerbaijani gas,” the expert said.
* According to the agreement signed with SOCAR, Bulgargaz company will start buying 1 billion cub.m. of gas a year from the Shah-Deniz-2 project via the TAP (from Greece) beginning 2019.
