Azernews.Az

By Nazrin Gadimova

The United Kingdom considers Caspian gas as important for European energy security, UK Prime Minister's Trade Envoy to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan Charles Hendry said at a press conference in Baku on November 21.

Charles Hendry said the decision, which was adopted by the Shah Deniz consortium on selection of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) as the route to transport gas to Europe, would be a great opportunity for a new phase of British investment and investment from other countries to Azerbaijan.

"We support companies whose activities open a new big step in contacts between the two countries," he said. "We want to see more companies coming to Azerbaijan."

In late June, the Shah Deniz consortium announced the selection of TAP as the route to transport its gas to Europe. Another pipeline which was vying for Azerbaijani gas transportation to Europe was Nabucco West.

The selection of TAP marked the start of the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project that will allow Europe to diversify its supply sources and increase energy security; it will also enable Azerbaijan to acquire a new market in Europe.

Speaking about the prospects of the Trans Caspian pipeline project implementation, Hendry said that "it is something that I believe will happen eventually".

"If the delivery of Turkmen gas through Azerbaijan to the European market via the pipeline becomes real, we will obviously support this," Hendry said adding that the EU strongly supports this project.

He also stressed that this issue will be a bilateral process between the governments of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

"We would like to see it happen. It would be good for European energy security if that pipeline was built," Hendry added.

Speaking about trade and investment relations between Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom he said that more than half of foreign direct investment in the oil and gas sector of Azerbaijan falls on the UK.

"But even in the non-oil and gas sector the UK is the biggest source of investment in Azerbaijan," Hendry added.

According to Hendry, the UK is interested in investing in those areas, which the Azerbaijani government considers as priority.

He also said that he became familiar with the Baku White City project, adding that there are companies in the UK that are interested in participating in such large-scale projects.