Azernews.Az

BAKU – An agreement on the transit of Azerbaijani gas to Europe through Turkey will be signed soon, an official of Turkish state-run pipeline company Botas has said.

"We began negotiations on an inter-governmental agreement in April and will finalize them during the second quarter of 2011," Botas strategy and business development manager Levent Ozgul told reporters in Baku on Tuesday.

Ozgul said Botas has authorized the Azerbaijani state oil company Socar to supply gas to Greece.

Botas has been re-exporting Azerbaijani gas to Greece since 2007. Socar and the Greek company Depa signed a deal in early April on direct gas supplies, bypassing Turkish intermediaries. Head of Socar Rovnag Abdullayev said then that Greece will be the first European country where Azerbaijan will directly supply its gas.

Ozgul said a contract on supplying 750 million cubic meters of gas to Greece has been awarded to Socar. A relevant trilateral agreement is expected to be signed soon.

Azerbaijan’s signing an agreement on gas supplies to European markets through Turkey will pave the way for the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor which will link Caspian gas sources to Europe.

The Southern Corridor is a priority EU energy project diversifying supply routes and sources and increasing EU energy security. The Southern Corridor includes the Nabucco gas pipeline, Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), White Stream, and Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) pipeline. Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are considered potential suppliers of energy for the pipelines.