Rosneft has confirmed readiness to cooperate with Azerbaijan. Ilham Shaban, head of the Baku Center for Oil Studies, reminded that Rosneft President Igor gave no details about negotiations with Azerbaijan’s SOCAR to form joint ventures in Russia, Azerbaijan or other states. Rosneft has good opportunities for licenses granted for fields in the Caspian Shelf.
Shaban believes that Rosneft should not enter the Absheron project, so as not to compete with Gazprom. LUKOIL has 10% of the Shah Deniz project. Absheron will give dividends in 2025 at best.
Leonid Gusev, a senior scientist of MGIMO, said that Rosneft was interested in the second stage of Shah Deniz development. He noted that petroleum cooperation of Russia and Azerbaijan was on the rise, compared with the past 13-14 years. Russia was not interested in Nabucco because it was a competitive project capable of delivering 30 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe through Georgia, Turkey and Greece and to Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary – importers of Russian gas. The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will have a capacity of 10 billion cubic meters and will not be a problem for Gazprom, the expert explained.
Gusev reminded that Shah Deniz development had started in 1994. It involves petroleum companies of the US, UK, France, Italy, Denmark. Russia was interested in the project too, he said.
