"Azerbaijan is Gazprom's bridge to South Asia and the Middle East"

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the online magazine Novye Izvestia on the importance of Azerbaijan for Russian foreign trade in energy resources.

— Just yesterday, fuel and energy industry experts discussed the importance of projects for the export of Russian gas, where Azerbaijan played a key role. This includes the possibility of transporting Azerbaijani gas to Southern Europe through TANAP, and gas supplies to Iran via the Caspian Sea, bypassing Turkmenistan.

— Yes, indeed, Russia relied on partnership with such a difficult ally as Azerbaijan. Why? Because geographically, this is the best way to interact with the countries of Southern Europe.

If we consider the same swap gas supplies through Turkey in the context of, for example, the termination of direct supplies of Russian pipeline gas through the Balkan Stream (the Europeans threaten to abandon our gas after 2027) and taking into account the actual termination of Ukrainian gas transit, then, of course, Azerbaijan looks attractive to us here.

— But Azerbaijan, as an exporter, is also linked to the European Union, where it undertakes to supply Russian gas.

— Yes, in 2022, the EU and Baku signed a memorandum on doubling the supply of natural gas from Azerbaijan to the European Union.

Currently, Europe receives almost 13 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas out of a total export volume of 24-25 billion cubic meters, or about half.

— So without Gazprom's participation, Baku will not be able to fulfill its obligations to Europe?

— By definition, it won't be able to. The growth rate of production in Azerbaijan is not consistent with the stated promises for export growth, including to the European Union. Therefore, here it could have been, so to speak, a mutually beneficial partnership.

— In January, the presidents of Russia and Iran personally discussed an agreement on the supply of Russian gas to Iran. Another recent war between Iran and Israel is a separate issue. But even here, Azerbaijan was supposed to pave the way for Russian gas.

We have agreed on gas supplies via an overland corridor through the territory of Azerbaijan, where there are free gas transmission capacities. This is the first stage.

And there is an even more ambitious goal in the future. We are not considering it as a task for the next few years, but nevertheless we have identified the potential of our gas cooperation with Iran.

These are supplies to the territory of the Islamic Republic of up to 150 billion cubic meters of Russian gas through the Caspian Sea, that is, volumes comparable to the exploded Nord Stream.

— Simply put, after the loss of the European gas market, only China with the Power of Siberia and Azerbaijan remained in the pool of our partners?

— If we talk about our energy sector, then, of course, Azerbaijan is our bridge to South Asia and the Middle East, because this opens the door to our closer cooperation with Iran.

And, again, through Azerbaijan we reach Turkey, where there is a TANAP gas pipeline system that would allow us to indirectly be present on the European gas market even if Europe really abandons Russian gas after 2027.