Azerbaijan, Baku, March 6 / Trend, A.Badalova /
The European Union wants an ambitious and long-term solution to the Southern Gas Corridor and wants to see unified transportation framework for the shipping of the Shah Deniz-2 gas, of other prospective Azerbaijani gas and eventually also Turkmen gas in the future, head of the EU delegation to Azerbaijan, Ambassador Roland Kobia said at a press conference in Baku on Tuesday.
Kobia said that for the EU it is crucial that the infrastructure option chosen for the transportation of the Shah Deniz-2 gas be scalable.
"The scalability must be guaranteed to ascertain that the infrastructure chosen can easily be upgraded technically and legally, so that it can automatically accommodate new volumes as new gas become available," he said.
Kobia stressed that is important that the decision taken now leave the door open not only for the future Azerbaijani gas, but also for the Turkmen gas and possibly other gas coming from the region.
He said that the EU is observing with great interest the latest developments around the new pipeline proposal.
"However, the work needed to translate these ideas and concepts into mature project should not delay nor undermine the Shah Deniz-2 gas delivery schedule," Kobia underlined.
Earlier this month Shah Deniz consortium excluded another project - ITGI from the list of those being considered to export Azerbaijani gas to the European countries, and made TAP a priority route for export of Azerbaijani gas to Italy. The decision was made in accordance with the previously announced criteria for the export of gas (10 billion cubic meters) under the Shah-Deniz-2 project to the European countries.