Baku, Azerbaijan, June 11
By Ilkin Shafiyev - Trend:
Introduction of innovative compressor station technologies may increase the throughput capacity of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project to 50-60 billion cubic meters of gas per year, deputy director of the International Energy Policy and Diplomacy Institute of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, candidate of economic sciences Igbal Guliyev told Trend June 11.
“The consolidation of Azerbaijan’s political positions on the global arena is considered separately, and in this context the flexibility of the Azerbaijani side in cooperation issues, demonstrating the willingness to include other suppliers is stressed, which corresponds to aims of increasing energy security in the region as a whole,” he said. “This possibility is considered at the late stages of the project’s implementation against the background of the full commissioning of the pipeline system. Countries of the Caspian region are the potential suppliers of natural gas using the SGC pipeline system.”
SGC promotes diversification of sources and routes of natural gas supplies, and this, in turn, contributes to improving the energy security of the EU, the expert said. He noted that for Russia, this project creates conditions of healthy market competition in the European gas market.
“Some experts think that SGC is a direct competitor to Russian gas supplies,” he said. “However, considering the structure of Russian gas exports to Europe, it is clear that more than 80 percent of Russian gas supplies account for Western European countries. The market of Eastern and Central Europe, where the main partners of Russia are Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, accounts for about 14 percent of the total European supplies. Thus, natural gas supplies from Azerbaijan won’t affect Russia’s commercial interests. In fact, the bulk of natural gas deliveries from Russia and Azerbaijan accounts for different regional markets. In this situation, we can predict only the possibility of a slight decrease in Russian gas exports to Italy in the future.”
The launching ceremony of the first stage of the Southern Gas Corridor project was held in Baku on May 29.
The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline.
The next stage will be commissioning of the TANAP gas pipeline, through which the gas will enter the territory of Turkey and further Europe. The launching ceremony of TANAP will take place on June 12 in Turkish Eskisehir.
The Southern Gas Corridor, which costs more than $40 billion, is one of the priority projects for the EU and provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe.
At the initial stage, the gas produced within the second phase of development of the Azerbaijani gas condensate field Shah Deniz is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects.
The gas in the second stage of the field development will be exported to Turkey and European markets through the expansion of the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of the TANAP and TAP pipelines.
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