BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 11. Speaking in Parliament on March 4, Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis stated that Greece has achieved energy independence thanks to TAP (the European segment of the Southern Gas Corridor) and Azerbaijan, as well as providing significant assistance to Bulgaria in supplying natural gas through the Greece-Bulgaria Interconnector (IGB), Trend reports.
The minister added that the TAP and IGB pipelines will be expanded.
On the same day, the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy
released a report by Deputy Minister of Environment and Energy
Alexandra Sdoukou, stating that Greece supports the expansion of
TAP and IGB and that the two infrastructures are critical to
diversifying gas export sources and routes in Southeastern
Europe.
In an exclusive interview with Trend, ICGB CEO Teodora Georgieva
stated that the Greece-Bulgaria Interconnector (IGB) will begin
operations with expanded capacity as early as the fourth quarter of
2025 at the interconnection point in Bulgaria's Stara Zagora and in
the fourth quarter of 2026 at the interconnection point in
Komotini, Greece. We are discussing the prospect of pumping up to 5
billion cubic meters of gas per year.
Concurrently, the Bulgarian Energy Ministry informed Trend about
the prospect of additional investments in Azerbaijan, such as the
gasification of Bulgarian regions, the supply of oil products, and
the development of infrastructure for charging electric
vehicles.
To clarify, SOCAR has an office in Bulgaria and is being considered
by the Bulgarian government as a bidder to purchase the Burgas
refinery on the Black Sea, where Russian oil shipments have been
prohibited since March 1, 2024. However, this refinery is still
owned by Lukoil, and only its trading structure, Litasco, can
supply oil to it. Litasco has stopped providing the facility with
Russian oil, instead supplying oil from Iraq, Tunisia, and
Kazakhstan.
Returning to the South Gas Complex, it is worth noting that Albania, which does not currently receive Azeri gas like Greece, Bulgaria, and Italy, has begun work on it. The Albanian Gas Service Company (AGSco) announced on March 9 that it has signed a 42 million lek ($443,000, or 405,000 euros) contract with Tech Inspect to examine TAP in Albania, with the contract expected to be finished by September 2025.
In a March 4 interview with Trend, Moldovan Energy Minister Victor Parlicov stated that the Southern Gas Corridor, together with the infrastructure created in recent years in the Balkans, has assisted Europe, particularly Moldova, in rapidly diversifying its gas supply sources. Moldova demonstrated that it could buy gas on the European market at a lower cost than under the arrangement with Gazprom (Russia).
The South Caspian gas pipeline transports gas from the Caspian
field Shah Deniz to Europe, and the State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) has
declared $78.5 million in earnings from the sale of gas and
condensate from this field in the first two months of this
year.
The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan also revealed that revenue from
the sale of oil from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) field block
from January 1, 2024, to March 1, 2024, was $862 million, compared
to $1.324 billion for the same period in 2023.
SOFAZ has obligations to the state budget of Azerbaijan and, for their fulfillment, sells currency at currency auctions of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan. The volume of currency sales from SOFAZ in February 2024 amounted to $920.5 million, while in January the total amounted to $417 million.
The main source of income in Azerbaijan is oil. It became known to Trend that oil production together with condensate in Azerbaijan in 2024 is expected at the level of 2023 and may amount to about 30 million tons (taking into account the start in the second quarter of 2024 production of the first oil from the platform "ACE" block Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and the increase in 2024 in the country's receipt of condensate from the fields "Shahdeniz" and "Absheron"). Meanwhile, the country will produce 30.19 million tons of oil with condensate in 2023 (7.5 percent less than in 2022).
The operating company for the Absheron Caspian field (JOCAP) told Trend this week that the field has produced 2.263 million barrels of condensate and 762.2 million cubic meters of gas from the start of production from the field's Early Production Scheme (EPS) in July 2023 until the end of 2023. Absheron's EPS is expected to peak at 1.48–1.50 bcm of gas per year in 2024. JOCAP also said that the first shutdown of Absheron EPS (Early Production Scheme) for maintenance and inspection is scheduled to take place this summer. Participants in the Absheron project are TotalEnergies, ADNOC, and SOCAR.
However, SOCAR is not only active in the Caspian. This week it became known that SOCAR Turkiye Energy (STEAS) has invested a total of $170 million in 2019-2023 in the work of Kayserigaz and Bursagaz to gasify Türkiye. Fuad Ibrahimov, head of STEAS' gas division, said that STEAS serves 1.9 million subscribers but is also planning new works to expand its subscriber reach in Türkiye.
SOCAR is also interested in business development in Africa, which was announced at the March 5 meeting between SOCAR head Rovshan Najaf and the Personal Representative of the President of the Republic of Congo for Strategic Affairs and International Cooperation, Françoise Joly. The parties discussed trade in oil and oil products of this African state, as well as the prospects of trade in green products.
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan discussed on March 5 in Astana the preparation of a draft agreement on strategic partnership in the energy sector between the energy ministries of both countries. The agreement will cover the expansion of ties in the renewable energy sector, along with the hydrocarbon sector. During the meeting in Astana, cooperation between SOCAR and KazMunayGas on the transit of Kazakh oil through Azerbaijan based on an agreement on the transportation of 1.5 million tons of oil per year through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, as well as on the prospects for a gradual increase in the volume of supplies, was highly appreciated. The sides also reviewed the progress of work following the agreement reached at the trilateral meeting between Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan on the export of electricity from Central Asia to Azerbaijan and from there to Europe.
In terms of energy events in neighboring Russia, it was revealed that Russia's Gazprom delivered natural gas to Uzbekistan in 2023 at a price of approximately $160 per 1,000 cubic meters, with deliveries taking place in the reverse direction via the Central Asia-Center gas pipelines beginning in October 2023. The Russian company delivered over 1.22 billion cubic meters of gas to Uzbekistan.
This week, it was discovered that Iran's largest refinery, the Abadan refinery, has declared an increase in refining capacity in accordance with the Oil Ministry's new policy to restrict crude exports. The refinery's capacity is currently 500,000 barrels per day (470,000 barrels per day in 2023), but it is expected to rise to 520,000 barrels per day by the end of this year.
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