BAKU,Azerbaijan, September 2. Azerbaijan is a reliable supplier to the neighboring market, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said addressing the 48th edition of the international Cernobbio Forum, Trend reports.
"Our energy strategy had been divided into stages. At the first stage, just three years after restoration of our independence in 1994, we were the first country which invited major energy companies of the world to work in the Caspian Sea. And very soon, we became an exporter of oil to European market, primarily to Italy and Azerbaijan is number one oil supplier to Italy for many years. But, being a landlocked country, we needed to have export pipelines, so we led the process of changing the energy map of Eurasia, building two strategic oil pipelines, one to the Mediterranean port of Turkiye and another to the Black Sea port of Georgia, thus diversifying the energy supplies to the Black Sea market and the world market. The second stage of our energy strategy was development of huge gas fields. According to the information about the proven reserves of Azerbaijan, they are equal to 2,6 trillion cubic meters and Azerbaijan, for many years, already for more than 10 years, is a reliable supplier to the neighboring market," the head of state said.