S&P Global Platts predicts the Southern Gas Corridor project to be extended in the future, analyst at S&P Global Platts James Huckstepp said.
According to him, the Southern Gas Corridor project will provide the necessary transport capacity to deliver 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year from the Caspian region to Europe. At the same time, Huckstepp emphasized that initially it would cover only 3-4% of Europe's total gas demand, a large share of gas will be transported to Southern Europe via this corridor. "S&P Global Platts predicts that the Southern Gas Corridor will be expanded in the future," he said.
The agency’s analyst also emphasized that a total of 6 billion cubic meters of gas per year from the Shahdeniz field will be delivered to the Turkish market via this gas corridor.
"Another 10 billion cubic meters per year is planned to be delivered to Greece, Bulgaria and Italy via the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which is almost completed and is expected to be launched in October 2020. Greece and Bulgaria signed a contract to receive 1 billion cubic meters per year each from the Shahdeniz-2 field, 8 billion cubic meters per year will be delivered to Italy,” Trend cited him as saying.
In addition, Huckstepp noted that Platts predicts an increase in the capacity to 24 billion cubic meters per year by 2023 and up to 31 billion cubic meters per year by 2026.
The Southern Gas Corridor project envisages the creation of a pipeline infrastructure for the transportation of Azerbaijani gas, which is extracted as part of the development of the Shah Deniz Stage 2 field, to Europe via Turkey
Earlier, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in the interview to Rossiya-24 TV channel that the Southern Gas Corridor is not competing with Russian gas supplies to Europe. “Sometimes in the media reports of different countries we hear and see such theses that there is some kind of competition between Russia and Azerbaijan. This is absolutely not true, it was never the case, and I’m sure that it won’t be. The topic of energy projects implemented by us or Russia was never the subject of any serious discussions. Both Russia and in Azerbaijan, I think, support these our projects," the president of the Azerbaijan said.
"We know how important the Turkish Stream project is for both Russia and Turkey. Both countries are our close partners, so we supported this project from the very beginning. As for the entry of Azerbaijani gas to the European market, 10 billion cubic meters of gas will be supplied to Europe per year after the Southern Gas Corridor project is implemented. Compared to the volume supplied by Russia, about 150-170 billion cubic meters of gas per year, it is a very small volume. Therefore, the Southern Gas Corridor project, of course, is no competitor and we never thought of it that way. It’s just the project that will allow Azerbaijan to realize its gas resources on international markets. Part of the gas is already supplied via this corridor to the Turkish market. At the end of November, the TANAP (Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline) project, which is part of the Southern Gas Corridor, has already been brought to the Greek border, the construction of a gas pipeline from the Turkish-Greek border to Italy has been completed by more than 90%," Ilham Aliyev said.
