Speech by Ilham Aliyev in a roundtable on “Energy and Connectivity” as part of 4th summit of European Political Community

The strategic partnership was defined in Baku in the energy field, we planned to double our gas supply to Europe by the end of 2027. We are moving towards that goal. If in 2021 our gas supply to the European continent was 8 bcm, this year it will be close to 13 bcm. The total export in 2021 was 18 bcm, and this year it will be 25 bcm, with more than half going to Europe.

We have eight countries receiving Azerbaijani gas: five member states of EU - Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Hungary, and Romania; two candidate countries – Georgia and Serbia; and Türkiye. Just prior to the session, we discussed with the Prime Minister that yesterday was an important development between Slovenia and Azerbaijan on the gas cooperation track. Hopefully, within several months, we will be able to enter the Slovenian market. Now, since the European interconnector projects are underway, there will be more opportunities for Azerbaijani gas to supply more European countries.

The European Commission holds Azerbaijan as a reliable partner in energy and a Pan-European gas supplier. This is a huge responsibility, and of course, we are trying to do everything in order to be able to implement our commitment to supply 20 bcm only to the EU by 2027. This is our target. We have resources, we have infrastructure. We need to speed up the negotiation process with new partners, primarily Slovenia and Slovakia, and work on increasing our gas supply to existing markets. Because if our supply to Italy is 9 bcm, Italy needs 20 bcm from us. So, that is just an example of the demand. Another point is all fossil fuels and their certain demonization. I will comment later on this issue.

With respect to our energy projects, Azerbaijan is a reliable supplier. For almost 20 years, we initiated and, together with our neighbors, commissioned the pipeline that connected the Caspian and Mediterranean for the first time in history. Now, from the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Türkiye, we supply our oil to different destinations, including very sensitive destinations which are largely dependent on Azerbaijani crude. In some countries, consumption of Azerbaijani crude makes up fifty percent or more of their demand. For more than three years, we have become an important gas supplier. Our gas pipeline, the Southern Gas Corridor, was commissioned on the 31st December of 2020. Definitely, contracts were signed beforehand, and immediately we started supplying our European partners. Before that, our partners were only Georgia and Türkiye. After commissioning the Southern Gas Corridor, a 3500 km integrated pipeline system partly going across the seabed in the Adriatic, we immediately started to supply Europe.