BAKU

Azerbaijan exported 7.7 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to Turkey from its giant Shan Deniz offshore gas field through the Southern Gas Corridor from January to November, according to Parviz Shahbasov, the country’s energy minister, as it continued to make inroads into an energy market until now dominated by Russia.

The country started commercial natural gas supplies to Europe from the second stage of the Shah Deniz project via its $40-billion Southern Gas Corridor in December 2020, when the corridor’s last part, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), was launched. The project is aimed at reducing Europe’s dependence on natural gas supplies from Russia, which currently controls 34 percent of the continent’s gas market.

The 878 km TAP pipeline connects to the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border in Kipoi, crossing Greece, Albania, and the Adriatic Sea before reaching Italy’s southern coast.

Gas to Europe was delivered through the TAP. Exports to Turkey were made through the TANAP and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzrum pipelines.

Around 13.6 bcm of gas was exported to Turkey since TANAP was put into operation in the summer of 2018, according to data ending June 1, 2021.

Total gas exports from Shah Deniz amounted to 15.923 bcm in the first 11 months of this year, 44.4 percent up from the same period last year, data released by the State Customs Committee showed.

The BP-led consortium, which develops the Shah Deniz project in Azerbaijan, has been pumping gas from the offshore field’s first phase since 2006, delivering more than 10 bcm a year of gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.