BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.29. Greece has significantly increased its gas imports from Azerbaijan, Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, told Trend.
June saw a notable surge in imports, with 174.6 million cubic meters received, compared to 163 million cubic meters in May, marking a 7.1 percent month-on-month increase.
Greece imported a total of 1.020 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan between January and June 2023.
The total expenditure by Greece on natural gas purchases from Azerbaijan during the initial six months of 2023 reached 523.8 million euros. However, this amount decreased in June to more than 58 million euros, compared to 68.8 million euros spent in May, representing a 15.7 percent decrease.
Meanwhile, data from the energy ministry for the same period in 2023 indicates that Azerbaijan produced 24.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Of this, 6.5 billion cubic meters were extracted from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field, and 13.2 billion cubic meters came from the Shah Deniz field. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) contributed 4.4 billion cubic meters to the overall gas production during this period. Gas transportation also increased by 0.7 billion cubic meters, signaling a 3 percent rise compared to the previous year.
Gas sales during this period amounted to 12 billion cubic meters, showing a 7.5 percent growth compared to the corresponding period in the previous year. Of this total, approximately 5 billion cubic meters of gas were exported to Turkey, 5.7 billion cubic meters to Europe, and 1.3 billion cubic meters to Georgia. It's worth noting that more than 2.8 billion cubic meters of gas were exported to Turkey through the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) during this time.
Azerbaijan supplies gas to Europe through the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which is the final link in the Southern Gas Corridor and has a capacity of 10 billion cubic meters, with the potential to expand to 20 billion cubic meters annually.
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