BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 3. This year we expect production from new gas fields, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said at the 9th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and the 1st Ministerial Meeting of the first Green Energy Advisory Council in Baku, Trend reports.
"If we talk about this year, this January, we signed the MoU between Azerbaijan and Hungary on gas supplies. So, this even expands the number of countries, members of our team. And all that is due to, first, close political relationship between the countries involved. Active coordination and efficient chairmanship by the European Commission and Azerbaijan of our efforts, and also, is a reflection of energy dialogue, which has started and was formalized between the European Union and Azerbaijan, which embraces natural gas, electricity, hydrogen, green hydrogen. I think this is a very unique, and very efficient format for our cooperation.
So, as soon as the MOU with the European Commission on increasing of gas supply to Europe was signed, we started in Azerbaijan to work actively to look for additional opportunities to supply more gas. Now, apart from expected production from new fields, which we expect, for instance, this year, and increase of production from existing Shahdeniz field, which definitely is the case, we also work on energy efficiency domestically. We are working on a program of reduction of losses. We are working on the program of combination of our domestic needs with respect to electric energy and natural gas to save more gas, which we are using now to generate electricity in Azerbaijan for export.
Our natural gas export is growing. In 2021, it was around 19 billion cubic meters. Last year it was 22.6. And this year we expect 24.5. So that means that the MOU with the European Commission is successfully implemented. We not only increase the production, we increase export and we expand the geography. And I'm sure that today the countries, which are involved in this project, will see and already see the benefit of it. And also it allows through different other connections and potential interconnectors to connect many more countries in Europe," President Ilham Aliyev said.