Azernews.Az

By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov and Hungarian Foreign and Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó discussed issues arising from energy cooperation between the two countries during the meeting on March 10.

During the meeting, Azerbaijan’s important role in diversifying Europe’s energy supply, especially gas supplies was noted.

Shahbazov stated that there are favourable opportunities for expanding cooperation between public and private institutions of the two countries, and for the participation of Hungarian companies in a tender to be held in Azerbaijan in the field of solar and wind energy.

Moreover, attention was drawn to the activities of the Working Group on Energy established between the governments of the two countries and to the issues to be discussed at the next meeting, scheduled for the second half of the year.

In turn, Szijjártó emphasized Hungarian companies’ interest in participating in the reconstruction works of Azerbaijan’s liberated territories.

Noting the importance of the Southern Gas Corridor for Hungary in terms of gas sources and diversification of routes, the minister expressed interest in expanding the project to Central Europe, emphasizing the importance of connecting the pipelines.

Additionally, a number of other issues of mutual interest were discussed at the meeting.

At the end of 2020, Azerbaijan started commercial gas supplies to Europe through the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, which helped achieve the strategic goal of the Southern Gas Corridor. The Southern Gas Corridor is an initiative of the European Commission for a natural gas supply route from Caspian and Middle Eastern regions to Europe, which envisages to reduce Europe’s dependency on a single source and add diversity of energy supplies. The route from Azerbaijan to Europe consists of the South Caucasus Pipeline, the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline. The initial capacity of the pipeline is about 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year, with the option to expand the capacity up to 20 billion cubic metres.

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Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad

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