BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan.8
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
The most important event in the first week of 2022 was related to the implementation of the gas swap deal between Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran. Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR said that Azerbaijan is receiving gas under the agreement signed with Turkmenistan.
Gas is supplied to Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The remaining volumes will be received near Astara. Currently, technical preparations are underway jointly with the Iranian delegation. It is planned to transport over 4 million cubic meters of natural gas to Azerbaijan per day from both directions.
Another remarkable achievement came from SOCAR Turkey, as its first digital project Circular TwAIN developed by the Research and Development (R&D) and Innovation Center won funding by European Commission’s Horizon Europe Program. The project, which brings together 10 international partners in the consortium, aims to develop a digital tool that will provide energy efficiency in large-scale production facilities with artificial intelligence. The Circular TwaAIn project will make significant contributions to reducing energy consumption and carbon footprint.
With Circular TwAIn, SOCAR Turkey will use digital technologies to achieve much more effective results for sustainable production. The Circular TwAIn project will serve to develop the company’s medium and long-term digitalization, sustainability and energy optimization strategies.
In addition, SOCAR Turkey inked an agreement with Siemens Turkey on renewal of energy distribution infrastructure. Siemens Turkey will undertake the installation and renewal of the entire energy distribution infrastructure and SCADA systems of STAR Refinery, SOCAR Storage and Petkim Petrokimya Holding for a period of 5 years. This cooperation will bring the digital transformation efforts involving all group companies to a higher level.
As for oil transportation plans, SOCAR announced an agreement with Russia’s Transneft on Azerbaijani oil supply via Baku-Novorossiysk. It is planned to transport 1.209 million tons of Azerbaijani oil, including 320,000 tons in Q1 2022.
The ongoing unrest in Kazakhstan caused concerns regarding the oil supplies via Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan. However, SOCAR said that oil supplies from Kazakhstan via Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan are ongoing at the moment. On average, around 100,000 tons of oil is transported from Kazakhstan via BTC per year.
Things seem to be complicated with Azerbaijani gas supplies to Bulgaria due to the delays in construction of the interconnector with Greece. Bulgarian Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov has said that because of the delays in construction of the interconnector, the country loses €750,000 a day, the lost benefits for Sofia for the last year amounting to over €250 million. Bulgaria will continue to lose even more revenue because of the never-ending construction, Nikolov said. The goal is for the gas interconnector with Greece to be put into operation by 1 July, so that it is ready for the next heating season and Bulgaria receives the entire amount of natural gas under the agreement with Azerbaijan. Bulgaria believes that a new builder could be sought to complete the pipeline.
Greek and Bulgarian energy ministers will meet to find out how to speed up the construction of the IGB gas interconnector and save at least the average extended deadlines.
Meanwhile, the ICDB AD, the project company says the Board of Directors has unanimously decided to use all contractual instruments to speed up the work of AVAX in order to complete the work on the EPC contract and ensure handing over the site to the contracting entity in the next few months, so as to achieve commissioning in July 2022 as initially planned.
All efforts of the project company ICGB remain focused on meeting that deadline despite the setbacks related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the delays caused by issues with the global supply chain and the performance rate of the EPC contractor. Unfortunately, the logistics problems are persisting, and the EPC contractor is already suffering significant delays concerning the critical equipment needed for the construction of all block valve stations (BVSs) as well as the gas metering station at Komotini (GMS1).
The project company is currently working on an analysis of which activities and processes can be carried out in parallel or within shorter periods given there is institutional support for that, so that the current commissioning date can be met without any further changes.
Currently, the construction activities for the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria continues, with trenching and lowering of the welded pipeline being reported by the contractor as completed.
Work is underway to connect all completed sections, and the total length of this activity is 4-5 km. 170 km of the 182-kilometer route have already been backfilled. A total of 6 out of 17 hydro tests have been performed, and this activity is ongoing. Recultivation has started in certain sections of the route. Work on the above ground facilities continues – two gas measuring stations near Stara Zagora and Komotini and a dispatch center near Haskovo.
The project company ICGB aims to complete the pipeline within the originally set budget of 240 million euros in order to stay competitive.
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