BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 21. Caspian producers are in a position to supply as much as 10 additional bcma within a matter of months, a volume which no other sources of pipeline gas can match, reads an analysis published by the Atlantic Council, Trend reports.
“There are three ways in which gas from currently operating fields in the Caspian can contribute to Europe’s gas balance in the short term. All are predicated on the concept that if the gas can reach Turkey, then LNG going into Turkey can be freed up for competitive sale to the rest of Europe, where there is a comfortable surplus of LNG regasification capacity,” says the think tank.
The three options are:
1) Capture of 5 bcm of gas produced by Petronas in
Turkmenistan’s sector of the Caspian, most of which is being
flared, and transporting it to Azerbaijan.
2) Increased volumes via the Turkmenistan-Iran-Azerbaijan 2 bcma
swap arrangement, active since January 2022. This could raise
deliveries to Azerbaijan by another 2-3 bcm, freeing up a
comparable volume of Azerbaijani gas for delivery to Turkey.
3) Organization of a new Turkmenistan-Iran-Turkey swap arrangement
to make use of spare capacity in the existing 48” Iran-Turkey
pipeline.
“Within a year, Turkmenistan could be capable of delivering as much as 10 bcma to Azerbaijan, both through a simple connector line across the Caspian and via Iran. Turkmenistan does have the potential to produce substantially greater quantities of gas, but in the short and medium term, anything more than 5-10 additional bcma will require significant investment in expanding relevant pipeline infrastructure,” reads the analysis.
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