BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 1. The construction of the Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP) is expected to be completed by 2028, Croatian transmission system operator Plinacro said this week, Trend reports.
Previously, IAP was scheduled to be completed by 2025.
Besides, this week, Norway’s Equinor company said that the total value of payments made by it to Azerbaijani government in 2022 amounted to $741 million, as compared to $553 million in 2021.
As such, Equinor’s payment to Azerbaijan grew by 34 percent year-on-year.
These payments included $39 million worth taxes (taxes paid includes taxes paid in-kind) and host government entitlements standing at $702 million.
The payments of Equinor to the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) amounted to $701.6 million in 2022, as compared to $514.7 million in 2021.
As such, Equinor’s payment to SOCAR grew by 36.3 percent year-on-year.
The company paid $300,000 to Azerbaijan’s State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) and $39.4 million to the country’s Main Tax Office.
Equinor’s payment for Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) project stood at $701.6 million in 2022.
The company’s payment for Absheron field amounted to $36.8 million, while payments for Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan stood at $2.6 million.
Equinor has an interest in the ACG oil field, as well as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
KazTransOil, the national oil transporter of Kazakhstan, shipped 9,959 tons of oil from the Tengiz oil field via Aktau port to Azerbaijan.
The company revealed that upon arrival in Azerbaijan, oil exports will continue through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
According to the company, the planned shipment volumes for April are much higher than in March (20,000 tons), because nearly 125,000 tons of oil will be sent to Azerbaijan from Kazakhstan.
This week, Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said that since the commissioning of TAP (Trans Adriatic Pipeline), the volume of gas supplied to Europe amounted to 22 billion cubic meters (bcm).
TAP Managing Director Luca Schieppati noted that the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will allocate additional 1.2 bcm of gas from 2026.
According to Schieppati, TAP has recently triggered the first level of capacity expansion. The additional 1.2 bcm to be allocated from 2026 will be the initial phase of the process until capacity is reached to 20 bcm per year.
This week, Parviz Shahbazov also said that Azerbaijan plans to supply 10.2 billion cubic meters of gas to Türkiye and about 12 billion cubic meters to Europe in 2023.
According to the minister, totally it’s expected to export 24.5 billion cubic meters of gas this year.
Besides, he noted that Azerbaijan is going to use vast potential of renewables, to deliver green energy to Europe.
Shahbazov reminded that Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, Hungary signed in December last year in Bucharest an agreement on the production and transmission of green energy.
According to him, Azerbaijan has 15 gigawatts of offshore wind potential in the Caspian Sea to deliver it to the European Union in form of electricity through high voltage lines and in a form of green gases like hydrogen, ammonia and so on, while four countries, together with the European Commission, and private companies are working together on this.
The minister pointed out that Azerbaijan’s strategy has been not to use state budget resources to develop the renewable source of energy in the country, but attract the foreign private companies.
Shahbazov also said that Azerbaijan is working on integration of bigger amount of renewable energy in its energy system and for this aim the US Tetra Tech and the Turkish Efra companies were attracted to Azerbaijan.
He reminded that three years ago Azerbaijan attracted German VPC, and identified 1,500 megawatts of integration capacity for the country's grid.
This figure is planned to be increased up to 2,000 megawatts, the minister explained.
Shahbazov added that just within three years, Azerbaijan has contracted already for 470 megawatts of solar and wind energy projects, and they are already being worked on.
The minister also stressed that construction of the Turkish part of the Igdir-Nakhchivan gas pipeline will begin in the near future.
Azerbaijan and Türkiye signed a memorandum of understanding on the Igdir-Nakhchivan gas pipeline on December 15, 2020.
The project will be implemented by SOCAR and Turkish BOTAŞ Petroleum Pipeline Corporation. Currently, Nakhchivan receives gas mainly through Iran. Azerbaijani gas supplies through Türkiye will help Nakhchivan meet its gas needs. The Turkish part of the pipeline from Igdir to Sadarak in Nakhchivan will be 85 kilometers long.