BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept.14
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR is actively studying the options to transport hydrogen to the markets via the Southern Gas Corridor or other available pipeline systems, Vitaliy Baylarbayov, Deputy Vice-President of SOCAR for Investments and Marketing said, Trend reports.
“We have established a unit dealing with hydrogen production and usage options, and are actively studying the options to transport hydrogen to the markets via the Southern Gas Corridor or other available pipeline systems. We are already working on hydrogen refuelling on some of our petrol stations in Switzerland and plan to have them operational in 2022,” he added.
He said SOCAR was taking decarbonisation efforts seriously and added that together with BP, it, except for the emergencies, stopped flaring gas on all facilities. It had also introduced a zero discharge policy on all offshore operations.
However, he said that while SOCAR was mindful of the necessity to a green transition, he insisted the upcoming period would be more likely described as a green evolution rather than revolution because gas will continue to remain an important fuel.
“While many US and European policy makers are acting as if an energy transition away from fossil fuels has already taken place, demand trends and prices say something else.” Baylarbayov said.
Preliminary investigations to transport hydrogen via the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the European leg of the Southern Gas Corridor have started. Leading European transport companies are cautious in their forecasts about the percentage of hydrogen, saying that these volumes will be around 2 percent.
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