The majority victory of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) at the recent parliamentary elections in Turkey will lead to still deeper Azerbaijan energy cooperation. At the same time, it underlines the Turkish hesitations about deeper cooperation with either Russia … Continue reading →
Russia is gambling big with its Turkish Stream problem. Gazprom is preparing to begin work on the Turkish Stream pipeline without there being an Russian-Turkish intergovernmental agreement in place. The Japanese firm Saipem, which Russia has been paying for months … Continue reading →
A recent evaluation of prospects for a revival of the Nabucco West pipeline concludes that it is not feasible in the absence of a Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP) carrying gas from Turkmenistan, presumably crossing Asia Minor through TANAP. To this … Continue reading →
The South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) takes natural gas from Azerbaijan into Turkey for Turkish consumption. It will soon be connected to the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP, from its Turkish initials), which will cross Asia Minor to Europe. TANAP, now under … Continue reading →
The president of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Rovnag Abdullaev, has announced that the US$8 billion-plus Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline may be expanded four-fold from its initially planned volume of 8-16 billion cubic meters per year (bcm/y) to as … Continue reading →
The French energy major Total this weekend announced yet another major natural gas discovery in the Caspian Sea offshore from Azerbaijan. The Absheron block is located to the east of the better-known Shah Deniz field (in which Total has a … Continue reading →
The changing geo-economic environment around the Central Asian and South Caucasus hydrocarbon energy producers is reflected in a public flip-flop by a major European Union official this week. At a news conference in Berlin, European Union Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger, … Continue reading →
Recent progress towards agreement on the possibilities for constructing a Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP), in the context of the European Union’s Southern Corridor Program, has drawn attention away from moves towards the elaboration of smaller-scale projects for the trans-Caspian transit … Continue reading →
Incident The EU’s president Jose Manuel Barroso, visiting Baku with energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger, has signed an agreement with Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliev foreseeing the sale of “substantial volumes of gas over the long term.” But they did not publish … Continue reading →
The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan ended their four-way Caspian summit meeting in Kazakhstan’s resort city of Kenderly last weekend with its purpose and consequences as clear as distant figures in an early autumn mist. Two elements did … Continue reading →