Azerbaijan not competing with Gazprom on gas supplies to Europe: SOCAR
By Aynur Jafarova
Azerbaijan does not compete with Russian giant Gazprom on gas supplies to Europe, Vice President of the Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR Elshad Nasirov said during discussions held in Baku within a meeting of the committee on energy security of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly earlier this week.
"Given the modest volumes of SOCAR, we cannot afford to compete with such a monopoly as Gazprom. Moreover, the projected 20-30 billion cubic meters of gas will find its customers, as the gas will be supplied not by a new route, but through the new corridor," Nasirov said.
According to him, for example, the South Stream pipeline -- a Russian-backed project -- is not only a new transport corridor, but also a new source of production for new customers.
"The energy sector today requires reevaluation of the European consumers. Ukrainian-Russian gas crisis...was the first signal that the Europeans have overestimated their energy policy," Nasirov noted.
Currently, the consortium on the development of Azerbaijan's gas condensate field Shah Deniz in the Caspian Sea considers two options for transporting its gas to Europe - Nabucco West and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). Both are part of the Southern Gas Corridor, a major energy project for the EU seeking to diversify routes and sources of supply.
Gas to be produced during the second stage of developing the Shah Deniz field, which holds estimated total reserves of 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas, is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects. It is planned to produce 16 billion cubic meters of gas during the second stage of Shah Deniz field development. Azerbaijan plans to export 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Europe during this stage.
Earlier, Nasirov said a final investment decision on Phase 2 of the project is expected to be made by October and a final decision on the gas transportation route to Europe will be made by the end of June 2013.
Production of the necessary volumes of gas and its supply to the pipeline are expected to begin in 2018 and deliveries to European markets in 2019.
Nabucco West is a short-cut version of the Nabucco project, which envisages construction of a pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. Designated capacity of the project is up to 31 billion cubic meters per year.
TAP, a rival project, aims to transport natural gas from the Shah Deniz field via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into western Europe. The project is designed to expand transportation capacity from 10 to 20 billion cubic meters per year, depending on supply and demand.