BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 17. Additional gas volumes to Europe from Azerbaijan could help to ease the cost-of-living crisis, Tatiana Khanberg, Director Strategic Communications and Membership, at the International Gas Union (IGU) told TurkicWorld.

"Europe is not out of the woods in the energy crisis, and so far, luckily the weather has been on its side. Mild winter temperatures and high storage levels cooled the prices from last the peaks of the last two years; however, the market fundamentals remain very tight and this equilibrium is fragile. The additional pipeline and gas volumes through the Southern Gas Corridor as suggested, would provide greater energy security, while improving affordability and an improved flexibility – which is always positive for the market. Additional gas volumes to Europe from Azerbaijan could help to ease the cost-of-living crisis and support reopening of the industry which had to close due to the earlier price crunches," said Khanberg.

She pointed out that increased pipeline capacity also reduces the challenge of bottlenecking, which has plagued Europe after its split from Russian pipelines.

"The European energy market will continue to evolve, as policy promotes decarbonisation needed to meet ambitious climate goals. Natural gas infrastructure is integral to enable an affordable, secure, and sustainable -- in every sense of the word -- energy transition. Natural gas is critical for maintaining energy system stability, and it is the best option for meeting the increasing needs for flexibility to integrate the planned tripling of renewables. As the gas industry too is working on decarbonisation, gas infrastructure also provides a major vehicle for delivering low and zero-carbon energy as the shares of renewable and decarbonised gases increases.

More gas infrastructure is needed for a secure energy transition, and it is good to see that perhaps the lessons of the last two years are bearing fruit of positive developments, like this one," added Khanberg.

In an interview with local TV channels on January 10, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said that so far, Georgia, Türkiye, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Hungary have already joined Azerbaijan’s gas system, various interconnectors have been created, and the driving force of all these interconnectors has been the Southern Gas Corridor.

"Because if we hadn’t come up with this initiative in good time, and not only with the initiative, if we hadn’t implemented it, of course, there would be no talk of any interconnector today. All these interconnectors, including Greece-Bulgaria and Bulgaria-Serbia, Romania and Hungary, are branches of the Southern Gas Corridor. So, today eight countries are buying Azerbaijan’s gas, six of them are European countries. The number of these countries will further increase in the future. Because we are now involved in talks with several European countries, and I can say that the negotiations are at an important stage.

The demand is there and will continue to grow, we have the resources, the "Shahdeniz" gas field is the largest gas-condensate field in the world. We started last year, but 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas will be extracted from the Absheron gas field this year. This is an additional resource for us. After that, at least such a task has been set before the end of this year, by December, I hope that first gas will be produced from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field as part of a project called "Deep Gas". The potential is quite immense there too.

We have other projects and the second phase of the "Absheron" gas field – a decision must also be made on that as well, i.e. an investment decision. If this decision is made, and I am sure it will be, the volume of annual production from "Absheron" will be 5 billion cubic meters. This is a very high figure. Apart from that, "Shafag", "Asiman", "Umid", "Babek", "Nakhchivan", "Karabakh" – preparation work is underway on all these fields, and their resource base is quite large.

In other words, when I once said that Azerbaijan would continue to be an important partner even after 100 years, I meant exactly that, and today it is coming true. I must also state that the Southern Gas Corridor is now operating at full capacity, and if we want to send additional gas volumes through this corridor, it must be expanded. Of course, additional funds should be invested there, but it can be expanded by means of pump stations, and there is demand. In principle, the creation of a new gas infrastructure in Azerbaijan can be considered in the future, and we are also considering this," said President Ilham Aliyev.