Vienna, Austria, May 24
By Ilaha Mammadli, Azad Hasanli – Trend:
The government of Slovakia is interested in opening filling stations of the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR in the country, head of Azerbaijan’s diplomatic mission in Slovakia Jafar Huseynzade told Trend May 24.
Currently, SOCAR owns a network of filling stations in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Romania and Switzerland and the company continues to constantly expand their number there. In total, the oil company owns about 300 filling stations in those countries.
Huseynzade noted that Slovakia is also ready to buy the Azerbaijani gas.
As of today, Azerbaijan exports gas to Turkey and Georgia. After the completion of the Southern Gas Corridor project, Azerbaijani gas will also be supplied to Europe.
Huseynzade said the Southern Gas Corridor project is among possible areas of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Slovakia in the oil and gas sector.
Representative of Slovakia’s Eustream company Pavol Kubik earlier told Trend that one of the ways for Slovakia to obtain the Azerbaijani gas can be using the Eastring pipeline.
There is significant potential for this as the Eastring project is open to gas supplies from any sources, Kubik said.
The Eastring pipeline project, initiated by Slovakia in 2014, is designed to connect gas networks of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. At the first stage, the pipeline will provide the Balkans with gas from the European market and in future, it will allow importing gas to Europe.
The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region to the European countries through Georgia and Turkey.
The gas to be produced as part of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz Stage 2 is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor.