Azerbaijan, Baku, 4 February / corr. Trend S. Agayeva/ Azerbaijan and European Union (EU) has reached an agreement to support the project of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline. Elmar Mammadyarov, the minister of foreign affairs of Azerbaijan and Dmitri Rupel, the president of EU and the minister of foreign affairs of Slovenia said on 4 February in Baku after the negotiations.
"The Trans-Caspian project is very important for the EU who supports alternative ways of supplying energy resources to Europe," Rupel said. We have already signed a memorandum of mutual understanding with Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan in this regard. We learned of Azerbaijan's position on the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project during our negotiations in Baku," he said. " Azerbaijan is ready to cooperate with the EU on the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline and any Central Asia country can join it," the minister of foreign affairs of Azerbaijan said.
The Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline is a proposed submarine pipeline between Turkmenbasy in Turkmenistan , and Baku in Azerbaijan . By some proposals it will also include connections between the Tengiz Field in Kazakhstan , and Turkmenbasy. The aim of the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline project is the transportation of natural gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to central Europe , circumventing Russia .
The planned capacity of the pipeline is 30 billion cu.m (bcm) of natural gas per annum, and the estimated cost will be around US$ 5 billion. [1] In Baku it will be connected with the South Caucasus Pipeline (Baku- Tbilisi - Erzurum pipeline), and through this with the planned Nabucco Pipeline ( Turkey - Bulgaria - Romania - Hungary - Austria pipeline). [2] However, it is unlikely that the project will go beyond the planning stages in the near future.