Hungary interested in Southern Gas Corridor’s reaching Central Europe

7 May 2019 13:46 (UTC+04:00)

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By Leman Mammadova

Hungary, like most European countries, supports the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project, which is designed to supply Caspian hydrocarbon resources to Europe.

Hungary is interested in gas supplies from Azerbaijan to southeastern Europe via the Southern Gas Corridor so that it also reaches Central Europe, said Peter Szijjarto, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

He made the remarks during the meeting attended by the foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group, the Eastern Partnership countries and Romania, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency.

“We’re considering multiple scenarios regarding the diversification of gas supplies to Hungary, but unfortunately one solution is taking even longer than the other. Therefore, it is important to keep [the option of importing] Azerbaijani gas among possible scenarios,” Szijjarto said.

He urged the EU to provide full support for the development of the Southern Gas Corridor.

Hungary regards Azerbaijan as a key partner in ensuring Europe’s energy security. Recently, it was proposed to establish a relevant working group within the Intergovernmental Commission for the development of energy cooperation between Azerbaijan and Hungary.

Southern Gas Corridor project (SGC), which envisages transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Caspian region to Europe, is important for Hungary in terms of diversification of energy sources.

Hungary also joined AGRI (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector) which would help diversify energy supply in the country. AGRI project envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to the Black Sea coast of Georgia via gas pipelines. Azerbaijani gas delivered to Georgia's Black Sea coast will be liquefied at a special terminal and subsequently it will be delivered in tankers to a terminal at the Romanian port of Constanta.

AGRI may be considered as additional supply route for the BRUA interconnector (which is expected to connect the natural gas transmission systems between Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria), which is currently under execution. Hungary and other countries, engaged in the BRUA project may take over some of the gas volumes that could be available through the Southern Gas Corridor's infrastructure.

The participants of the AGRI project are SOCAR, Georgia's Oil and Gas Corporation, as well as MVM (Hungary) and Romgaz (Romania).

The Southern Gas Corridor, $40 billion worth project, envisages the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey and Europe through the pipeline, which will be operated within the second stage of the Shah Deniz gas condensate field project in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.

The Southern Gas Corridor consists of four projects: Shah Deniz 2, Expansion of South Caucasus Pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum), the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).

On May 29, Baku hosted the launch of the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor project, and on June 12, the opening ceremony of the TANAP took place in the Turkish province of Eskisehir.

The first 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.

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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888