BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 6. Expansion of the Southern Gas Corridor is important, especially if it is incremental in response to securing sales, Charles Ellinas, CEO of Cyprus-based energy consultancy e-CNHC told Trend.
“The snag with this is that Europe’s stated needs are short-term. Europe wants alternative gas supplies in order to get rid of Russian gas by 2027. But it also keeps repeating that it intends to accelerate energy transition. In that context it plans to reduce gas consumption by 30 percent by 2030, on the way to near zero by 2050. This does not encourage investments in long term projects that need 20+ years to produce returns,” Ellinas explained.
Regarding Azerbaijan’s plans to replace its energy needs with renewables, thereby freeing additional volumes of gas for exports, the expert noted that this is a much better proposition, especially if renewables projects can be developed within the next couple of years.
The supply of Azerbaijani gas to Europe through the Southern Gas Corridor began on December 31, 2020. Azerbaijan exported its natural gas to the European market through pipelines for the first time in history.
The Trans Adriatic pipeline (TAP) which is the European part of the Southern Gas Corridor, will annually supply eight billion cubic meters of gas to Italy and one billion cubic meters of gas to Greece and Bulgaria.
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