BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 11. This week Deputy Prime Minister of Moldova Andrei Spinu said that the gas network system in the East Balkans is ready to receive gas from Azerbaijan.
"The route is ready and open also for Azerbaijani gas. As soon as it reaches the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), it can be transported to the north," he added.
Ervin Ibrahimović, Vice Prime Minister of Montenegro, in his turn, noted that Montenegro is ready to become a transit country for gas supplies from Azerbaijan to Europe.
"We have been closely cooperating with Azerbaijan for many years. In particular, we have signed many memoranda of understanding with the country and local companies. We are ready to facilitate the construction of a pipeline on the territory of Montenegro, through which gas from Azerbaijan will continue to reach European countries," he said.
Slovakia is also ready to adjust its existing infrastructure to enable increased gas supplies from Azerbaijan, Slovakian Ministry of Economy said.
"Slovak Transmission System Operator, supported by the Slovak Government, has been preparing a corridor for the Azerbaijani gas to increase security of supply in the region of the South- Eastern Europe. The initial idea (former Eastring project) was to develop a route enabling to import to Europe 20 bcm of non-Russian gas. This initial idea has been further developed to current vision of achieving immediate transmission capacity amounting 5 bcm/year, with just minor adjustment of currently used infrastructure in cooperation with TSOs from Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria," the ministry said.
Slovakian ministry also added that Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria have asked the European Commission to allocate funds for developing infrastructure to get additional natural gas from Azerbaijan, and, in this regard there is an idea to create a working group for the project.
At the same time, Luca Schieppati, TAP managing director, has informed that the new long-term capacity of the TAP will be available at end-2025.
"The requests [in the market test] amount to 1.2 bcm for deliveries from 2026 to December 2028 and, in a second tranche, from October 2026 to September 2033. We are signing the transport contracts for this new long-term capacity which will be available at end-2025. To the first 1.2 bcm of gas, of which 1 bcm to Italy and 200 mcm to Albania, TAP will add at least 10 percent of extra gas under pipeline operating conditions," he explained.
Schieppati also added that Italy’s strategy includes full political support for the increase of transportation via the Southern Gas Corridor.
Meanwhile, according to the latest data from bp published this week, the Shah Deniz field produced about 25 billion standard cubic meters (bscm) of gas and more than 4 million tons of condensate in total from the Shah Deniz Alpha and Shah Deniz Bravo platforms in 2022, showing an increase of 8.7 percent year-on-year (23 bscm of gas and more than 4 million tons of condensate in 2021).
At the same time, on average, around 68 million standard cubic meters (about 2,416 million standard cubic feet) of Shah Deniz gas was sent from the Sangachal terminal daily during the year of 2022, as compared to 61 million standard cubic meters in 2021.