US President Donald Trump announced his support for Azerbaijan in terms of natural gas supplies to European countries. In his opinion, such a solution will ensure global energy security. Obviously, such a situation cannot cause delight in Russia.
What did they talk about at the conference?
The Caspian Oil and Gas conference has started in Baku, with more than 400 representatives of large companies and international organizations from 30 countries taking part. The American leader sent a letter of welcome, in which he promised full support of the United States in terms of creating the Southern Gas Corridor. Now gas flows through it from Azerbaijan through the Georgian and Turkish gas transportation systems. It is proposed that in the future gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan will also be supplied to European consumers, bypassing Russia.
The US President highly appreciated Azerbaijan’s plans to develop Caspian energy resources and their subsequent export. The head of the White House believes that this approach will help strengthen energy security on the planet. He also recalled that Azerbaijan and the United States have been fruitfully cooperating for a quarter of a century, and their interaction in new areas gives rise to some optimism. He also noted that official Washington stands for resolving the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh peacefully.
Maros Šefović, Vice-President of the European Union for Energy, stated that the EU is extremely interested in implementing the project to create the Southern Gas Corridor, in which Azerbaijan is the main player. According to him, the implementation of such a large-scale gas project will ensure stability in Europe both economically and politically.
During the opening ceremony of the forum, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that specialized experts estimate the country’s natural gas reserves at 2.6 trillion cubic meters. She said that the Southern Gas Corridor is being built in stages, with four sections in total. He emphasized that the work to put these segments into operation is progressing successfully, and the total investment in the project will be about $40 billion.
Ilham Aliyev said that the implementation of the Shah Deniz 2 project is about 93%, the South Caucasus Pipeline – 85%, the Trans-Anatolian Project – 72%, and the Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline – 42%. Thus, it can be assumed that already in 2020, European consumers will receive Azerbaijani gas through the Southern Gas Corridor.
Who will the Southern Gas Corridor help?
At the conference it was noted that Azerbaijan does not consider it necessary to increase oil production in the coming years. At the same time, the volume of gas produced is planned to increase from 28.5 billion cubic meters this year to 45 billion cubic meters in 2020. After this, natural gas production is planned to be increased through the commissioning of new fields. As a result, the volume of annual exports should increase to 30-40 billion cubic meters. In addition, the capacity of the Southern Gas Corridor can be increased to 60 billion cubic meters. This will be relevant if Central Asian countries join this project.
In the future, the Southern Gas Corridor may seriously compete with gas supplies from Russia to European countries. As the Exchange Leader reports with reference to Rosbalt, this can be used by the West to exert political pressure on Moscow.
The deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry has already expressed some concern about the attempts of European states to create obstacles to the implementation of the Russian Federation’s plans for the construction of the Turkish Stream and Nord Stream 2. He recalled that the volume of gas planned to be supplied via Turkish Stream is more than 31 billion cubic meters. This significantly exceeds Turkey’s needs, so the surplus is planned to be exported to Greece and Italy.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan constantly points to a strategic partnership with Russia. Europe and the United States currently give preference to the Azerbaijani side in resolving the gas issue, doing everything possible to block Russia. It is still difficult to predict how successful this strategy will be from the point of view of energy security, but for now both Russia and Azerbaijan are trying to complete the construction of gas pipelines.