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President Ilham Aliyev: Bulgaria may be one of first to receive Azerbaijani gas (PHOTO)

Politics Materials 15 November 2011 13:16 (UTC +04:00)
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has stated that Bulgaria maybe one of the first countries to receive the Azerbaijani gas.
President Ilham Aliyev: Bulgaria may be one of first to receive Azerbaijani gas (PHOTO)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 15 / Trend /

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has stated that Bulgaria maybe one of the first countries to receive the Azerbaijani gas.

"If we look at the geography, we can see that Bulgaria is one of the closest to our gas. Naturally, Bulgaria may be one of the first countries to receive our gas. We are in talks today to achieve this. That is enough to look at the map to see that this project can easily be realized," President Aliyev said at a news conference with Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov on Monday.

President Parvanov paid an official visit to Azerbaijan on Nov.14-15. One of the topics of the negotiations between the parties was the Azerbaijani gas supplies to Bulgaria.

Mr.Aliyev said Azerbaijan put forward initiatives to supply its rich natural gas resources to the world market.

"Today, there are four pipelines connecting Azerbaijan with global markets, and all four are in working condition. Of course, our cooperation with the European Union in the gas industry has excellent prospects," President Aliyev believes.

President Aliyev said the existing gas infrastructure should be extended and new ones should be built to supply rich natural gas resources of Azerbaijan in large quantities to the European markets.

"Serious work is underway in this regard. I am confident that Azerbaijan can meet Bulgaria's gas needs at the extent that Bulgaria wishes. Since, Azerbaijan's gas production is at almost 27-28 billion cubic meters today. It is in itself a very large number. Additional 17 billion cubic meters of gas output is expected to receive with the realization of the Shah Deniz-2 project. If we also add the recently opened projects in Azerbaijan to this, we can see that gas production in Azerbaijan can be measured by even large numbers. This will allow us to ensure the energy security of our partners for many years," President Aliyev said.

President Parvanov said the issue of Azerbaijani gas supplies will depend on decisions to be adopted in Bulgaria, and wayouts to be found with partners in Azerbaijan.

"These are issues relating to both the gas supply and its volume," he said.

He said the agreements reached between Azerbaijan and Turkey create a framework to accelerate this process - a process of gas purchases.

"How much and in what volume - it will be calculated at the Economy Ministry, generally, our government. Since, we must carry out calculations of how much natural gas we need. That is, it is not the calculations performed solely in the office of the President. As for prices, I would simply say, even going beyond all the rules, specific companies and firms will deal with this. That is, there is no need to perform any comparison. I just would like to say that even a small success would be of a symbolic character not only for our region, but also for Europe. Therefore, it will depend on us whether we retain the tempo and dynamics of this cooperation," President Parvanov said.

Azerbaijan is planning to deliver 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe within the second phase of the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz Field. Now partners in the Shah Deniz development consider proposals from the pipeline projects to determine the route via which Azerbaijani gas will be delivered to Europe.
Among the projects, which can transport Azerbaijani gas to Europe are the Nabucco gas pipeline, TAP (Trans Adriatic Pipeline) and ITGI (Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline).

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