Baku, Azerbaijan, May 27
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
While implementing the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project, Azerbaijan relies on own resources, Natig Aliyev, Azerbaijani energy minister, said in an interview with the Caspian Energy international journal.
The minister said that there is a fuss permanently observed around the projects bearing such importance of SGC.
"It can be called a competition, rumors, opinions, when everybody wants to present an opinion as the only "right thing to do" in order to cause a sensation," Aliyev added.
"Therefore, some politicians and economists for example say that the Turkish Stream will somehow affect the SGC without having any idea about essence of the Turkish Stream and the way it can be realized."
"Or some people say that fields have been discovered in Israel and right now this country which was dependent on energy resource for rather long period of time will be able to deliver big volumes of gas right to Europe," he said. "Or they say about discovery of big fields in Georgia or in Cyprus."
"We all perfectly know that field appraisal and production of energy resources takes a long time," Aliyev stressed. "There is a need for capital investments along with other hard work."
"I can say the following: if any party has gas supply capacities for TANAP, either Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Israel or Cyprus, we are ready to expand the pipeline and transport," Aliyev said. "But it should be a long-term liability of parties. There have been no such proposals received and I think that it will not happen in coming 5-10 years."
The minister said that all projects that are implemented in Azerbaijan are based on the country's own resources.
"We never relied on others' sources and never took them into account when determining economic benefits of projects," Aliyev said. "The same happened while building Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and during other projects."
"I remember in the course of implementation of BTC there were many statements made that this project would not be realized without Kazakhstan's oil or it would be unprofitable," he said. "I said it then and now I continue saying that we never count on other parties' resources."
"The same thing is happening now," Aliyev said. "When making economic calculations, we do not at any rate count on gas from Turkmenistan, Iran or Kazakhstan even if they have a wish to use SGC."
"I think relying on own resources and abstention from wishful thinking is the most reliable positions otherwise it can end up with only disappointments," Aliyev said.
"If our partners have an opportunity to export gas, we are ready to negotiate it with great pleasure and try to allocate transit capacities," Aliyev said. "If they don't have them, we will continue implementing our projects."
The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It envisages the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian Sea region to the European countries through Georgia and Turkey.
At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage.
As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and Trans-Adriatic Pipeline.