The statement came hours after Russia said it would buy more gas than previously expected from Azerbaijan in a potentially unsettling development for Nabucco, which experts say is still struggling to secure supplies.After two years of protracted negotiation amid political tensions, Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding on gas supply and transit on June 7, clearing the way for the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline project to begin negotiations with Azerbaijan on much needed supplies. But Azeri officials said at the time the fine print of commercial and export details had yet to be worked out. “By March 31, 2011, SOCAR and [Turkey’s] Botaş will agree all issues and sign three documents - - on the purchase and sale of gas from Shah Deniz II, on transit, and the price of gas from Shah Deniz I,” SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev told reporters.
The Nabucco project is struggling to secure supplies for a pipeline with a planned capacity of 31 billion cubic meters, which is designed to cut European energy dependence on Russia. Russia’s rival South Stream pipeline, which also plans to feed European markets, is competing for supplies.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is due in Baku on Sept. 2-3, where he will sign a deal to purchase more gas from Azerbaijan in 2011 and 2012 than previously agreed, his top foreign policy aide Sergei Prikhodko said on Wednesday, further tapping supplies courted by Europe. Deliveries this year to Russia are set to amount to 1 bcm, but Russia’s Gazprom said in January it planned to double that amount in 2011.
Azerbaijan has said it plans to send 10 billion cubic meters of gas from Shah Deniz II to Europe once it comes online by 2016. BP and Norway’s Statoil STL.O are co-leaders of production at the field, which is estimated to hold 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. Like the 7.9 billion euro Nabucco pipeline, other projects such as the Italy-Turkey-Greece Interconnector (ITGI) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) also aim to bring Azeri gas to Europe.
