Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan hopes to complete talks on the Southern Gas Corridor of pipelines by the end of 2011 and further launch the project, President Ilham Aliyev has said in Brussels.

"We support the Southern Gas Corridor and hope to complete discussions with transit states and potential buyers by the end of the year," President Aliyev told a news conference on Wednesday after meeting European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. "And having done that, we will be able to begin implementing a large-scale project enabling Azerbaijan to avail of all of its resources that will provide reliable gas supply sources for European consumers."

The Southern Corridor is a priority EU energy project diversifying supply routes and sources and increasing European energy security. It includes the Nabucco gas pipeline, Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), White Stream, and Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) pipeline.

During his meeting with the European Commission head the Azerbaijani president mainly discussed energy security and the Southern Gas Corridor of pipelines, particularly the Nabucco project.

Azerbaijan is among potential suppliers for the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, which seeks to carry up to 31 billion cubic meters a year of gas across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey into southeast Europe and onwards to an Austrian trading hub, bypassing Russia. According to the pipeline consortium, construction is due to start in 2013 and operations in 2017.

European Commission President Barroso told the press conference that the Southern Gas Corridor project is of strategic importance for both the European Union and Azerbaijan.

"This project will provide us with an alternate route of supplies from the Caspian region," he said. "We agreed today to continue working and realize this idea."

President Aliyev said after the meeting with Barroso that energy security has always been on the agenda of EU-Azerbaijan discussions.

"After Mr. Barroso’s visit to Azerbaijan in January, we have moved along this road more quickly. Prior to the visit, we already had a good exchange of ideas. But this visit and the signing of a memorandum on the Southern Gas Corridor was a crucial point."

During Barroso’s visit, an important strategic document - Joint Declaration on the Southern Gas Corridor - was signed, with which Azerbaijan committed to supplying substantial volumes of gas over the long term to the European Union.