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Italy, along with Turkey, is biggest recipient of our gas - President Ilham Aliyev

Politics Materials 29 April 2022 12:17 (UTC +04:00)
Italy, along with Turkey, is biggest recipient of our gas - President Ilham Aliyev

BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 29. Italy, along with Turkey, is the biggest recipient of our gas, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said addressing the international conference under the motto “South Caucasus: Development and Cooperation”, Trend reports.

"With respect of the gas, I would like to express our position a little bit broader. We implement all our commitments. All the contracts, which have been signed with our consumers, are being implemented a hundred per cent. Today, Azerbaijani gas is being exported to Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy. So, Italy, along with Turkey, is the biggest recipient of our gas. Last year, it was more than 9 billion cubic meters. We, of course, were planning our gas development projects based on the existing contracts and the existing contracts have this capacity, this volume. We do not produce more, because there is no way to sell. If there is a demand, which, as you mentioned, is now urgent, then we need, first of all, to see about the sources. Because our production is calculated on local consumption and exports. We do not produce more than that because there will be no way to sell. With this situation, when we received several demands and requests not only from Italy, but from some other European countries about increase of supply, first of all, it is the source. We need to find the source. As said, partly it will be due to the optimization of the losses of gas internally, partly, it will be due to the solar and wind substitution of natural gas and partly it will be due to the new production. We expect production from new fields next year already, from Absheron field to have 1,5 billion cubic meters more, and we expect from some other fields. Apart from that, of course, capacity of the pipelines is also important. The Southern Gas Corridor is an integrated pipeline system, which, for example, TANAP has one diameter and TAP has a different diameter. TANAP can transport more than 30 b.c.m, TAP can transport 10 b.c.m. Why? Because it was a market. We were supposed to sell to Italy 8 b.c.m. And for that purpose, the shareholders of TANAP, including SOCAR, which has only 20% there, designed the pipeline volume so that not to have additional expenses. We did not expect additional gas to come in the nearest future, therefore, the design of TAP was different. Is it possible to expand it? Yes, it is possible. By adding pump stations, it can be expanded up to 20 billion cubic meters. In other words, Italy can get twice as much as they get today. But, for that purpose, TAP team should get together and that was part of my discussions with Prime Minister Draghi and then with Minister Di Maio, who visited us here. Shareholders of TAP need to agree on an additional investment program how to expand it and look from a technical point of view. I don’t want to go into too much technical detail, but it is not something which can be done in one month. It is not possible technically. So, in the meantime, there are other ways to have interconnectors. For instance, now, the construction of the interconnector between Bulgaria and Greece is in the final stage and I got information from our Bulgarian colleagues that by September it will be in operation. There are other projects to interconnect the European gas distribution network. So, all that is on our agenda. We never planned to replace Russian gas. It is not possible because of the difference of volumes and we never had any intention to compete on the European market. We just wanted to have an access to the European market because it is the best. It is regulated by the regulations. It is stable and it is a market with the highest price. Today, we sell the gas to different consumers and the best price is in Europe. So, it is commercial. So, we didn’t have any intention to have rivalry or competition with Russia and I can tell you that our energy policy was never questioned by Russia. We never had any kind of discussions or kind of questions. So, I am sure this will not negatively influence our relations with Russia," the head of state said.

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