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Azerbaijan may earn billions from SGC project annually, says analyst

21 February 2019 18:46 (UTC+04:00)
Azerbaijan may earn billions from SGC project annually, says analyst

By Trend

The Southern Gas Corridor, which is a systemically important project for the Azerbaijani economy, promises to bring the country billions in foreign exchange earnings, doctor of economic sciences, expert economist, professor Elshad Mammadov told Trend Feb. 21.

The expert noted that the economic power of Azerbaijan was essentially associated with the implementation of the so-called Contract of the Century, when serious investments started entering Azerbaijan and the country received revenues from oil exports.

“The Southern Gas Corridor is continuation of this energy policy,” he said. “As is known, the volume of supplies through the Southern Gas Corridor at the initial stage is about 6 billion cubic meters for Turkey and 10 billion cubic meters for Europe. At first glance, it is not a very significant figure for Europe, which consumes an average of about 500 billion cubic meters of gas. However, it should be understood that there is sharp, I would even say, critical dependence on gas imports and the issue of diversification of energy sources suppliers including gas suppliers is very serious.”

The expert added that in order to reduce dependence on one supplier, Europe makes great efforts, and in this regard, (considering that energy production in Europe is critically falling), Azerbaijan is one of the important alternative sources of gas supplies, noting that Europe placed a serious bet on this country.

“Therefore, the significance of Azerbaijan and the Southern Gas Corridor project initiated by our state will be important from the point of view of European economic policy management,” he said. “As for the benefits that the Southern Gas Corridor can provide to Azerbaijan, according to my information, we can get about 2-3 billion of earnings annually from the implementation of this project.”

He noted that from the point of view of balancing, optimizing the balance of payments of Azerbaijan, considering gross domestic product and state budget revenues, the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project can be significant for the Azerbaijani economy, and these opportunities should be used to redirect investment flows to priority areas, to the real sector of economy.

The 5th Ministerial Meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) Advisory Council was held Feb. 20 at the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku.

The participants in the event included energy ministers from the Southern Gas Corridor member-states and representatives of a number of organizations, as well as European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, acting co-chair of SGC Advisory Council Gunther Oettinger.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority projects for the EU and envisages the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe.

The launching ceremony of the first stage of the Southern Gas Corridor was held in Baku on May 29, 2018, while opening ceremony of TANAP was held on June 12, 2018 in the Turkish city of Eskisehir.

The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline.

Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) have been recently connected on the Turkish-Greek border.

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