Baku, Azerbaijan, March 14
By Gulgiz Muradova - Trend:
The energy sector is of great importance for Moldova, as the country has very limited resources and depends almost entirely on one source of energy, Moldovan Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Tudor Ulianovschi said in an interview with Trend.
Therefore, according to Ulianovschi, being interested in guaranteeing the energy security of the country, Moldova has developed the 2030 Strategy, which defines strategic objectives, priorities and opportunities in this field and pursues three major tasks: securing safe energy supply; developing competitive markets and their regional and European integration; and ensuring sustainability of the energy sector.
"For the same reasons, we are very much interested in diversification of energy sources and routes of their delivery, and we hope that a great role in the achievement of such an objective could be played by Azerbaijan, especially through successful implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project, including its TAP and TANAP segments, which are to ensure diversification of natural gas sources and strengthen energy security of many European countries," the minister said.
Ulianovschi further stressed that Moldova is also interested in the advancement of other energy projects, such as AGRI (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector), which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas via pipelines to Georgia and then liquefied gas to Romania, as well as BRUA (Bulgaria-Romania-Hungary-Austria), which in a long term have the potential of becoming important instruments for ensuring the energy security of the countries in the region.
"This is especially important for us in the context of connecting Moldova to the Romanian gas system through the Iaşi-Ungheni pipeline, and especially in the perspective of finishing, at the end of this year, the construction of the Ungheni- Chisinau gas pipeline, designed to supply with gas Moldova's capital city, which is the biggest consumer in the country. Full implementation of this major project will allow Moldova not only to connect to the Romanian energy system, but to the European one as well; it will also create new opportunities for diversification of the energy supply and increased energy security of the country," the minister noted.
The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority projects for the EU and provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe.
At an 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 Shah Deniz Stage 2, 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 (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).
AGRI project envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to the Black Sea coast of Georgia via gas pipelines. Azerbaijani gas delivered to Georgia's Black Sea coast will be liquefied at a special terminal and following this, it will be delivered in tankers to a terminal at the Romanian port of Constanta.
Further, it will be brought to the gaseous state and sent via Romanian gas infrastructure for meeting the demands of Romania and other European countries. The cost of the project will vary from 1.2 billion euros to 4.5 billion euros, according to the preliminary estimations.
The participants of the AGRI project are SOCAR, Georgia's Oil and Gas Corporation, as well as MVM (Hungary) and Romgaz (Romania). The parties established the SC AGRI LNG Project Company SRL in February 2011 for the implementation of the project.
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