Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Nov. 17 / Trend H. Hasanov /
Azerbaijan is prepared to offer guarantees and allocations on its territory, as well as transit opportunities and infrastructure to implement the Trans-Caspian project, SOCAR Vice President on Strategic Development Tofig Gahramanov said at the oil and gas conference in Ashgabat on Thursday.
"I think that the positions of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are similar in this issue," he said. "Ensuring diversification and numerous export opportunities are amongst them."
Mr Gahramanov also stressed that people spoke a lot about the pipelines connecting Turkmenistan with gas supplies to Russia, Iran and China. The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project and Southern Corridor across the Caspian Sea are very interesting. "We support this project," he added.
He stressed that the Trans-Caspian project requires further detailed discussion. "The EU and the European Commission are closely involved in this," he said.
Looking at the Nabucco project, Brussels regularly raised the issue of its commodity filling. The matter rests with a possibility to diversify the sources of raw materials. Besides Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, Egypt, Iraq and Iran were often called in as raw material sources.
Turkmenistan, with its reserves can claim to be one of the key suppliers and Ashgabat efforts in this direction are very significant.
The construction of the 1000 kilometre internal East-West gas pipeline worth $ 2 billion was launched. It aims at uniting the resources of the eastern region of the country such as Yoloten and neighbouring fields into a single transport network with the Caspian coast. By laying the 300-kilometre pipe through the seabed via Azerbaijan and Turkey, one can enter the European market.