On Tuesday, in Sofia, the memorandum of understanding to encourage cooperation between natural gas transport operators from Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Azerbaijan was signed. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said this memorandum will bring increased security and more gas supplies to several countries in Europe, according to BTA.
“Today, gas from Azerbaijan is delivered to Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Italy and, starting this year, we will start delivering gas to Romania as well. By the end of this year, if all interconnection pipelines are available, we hope to deliver gas to Hungary and Slovakia,” Aliyev said.
According to Ilham Aliyev, the signing of this document came “at a very opportune moment”.
Proposed within the Solidarity Ring (STRING) joint initiative, proposed by Bulgaria and supported by the European Commission, the memorandum aims to increase the security of natural gas supplies to the EU and the region of Central and South-Eastern Europe, according to Agerpres.
The document was signed by the Interim Minister of Energy of Bulgaria, Rosen Hristov, the Minister of Energy of Romania, Virgil-Daniel Popescu,V the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Hungary, Peter Szijjarto, the Minister of Economy of Slovakia, Karel Hirman and the Minister of Energy from Azerbaijan, Parviz Shahbazov.
Aliyev also said that “this demonstrates the level of relations between our countries as well as the dynamics of our political dialogue.” He emphasized that Azerbaijan signed a strategic partnership with nine European states.
In July, Azerbaijan and the EU signed another memorandum on energy security, which calls for the doubling of natural gas supplies by 2027, and the Azerbaijani president added that his country expects to start production of natural gas from new fields in the next years.
Aliyev said he hopes that gas supplies from Azerbaijan to at least six to ten countries on the European market will be increased. Aliyev added that natural gas is not the only energy product that Azerbaijan delivers to Europe: it is also a reliable partner for the delivery of fossil fuels.
“Today we are starting a project for the 21st century, which will expand and therefore, being a reliable partner in the energy sector, Azerbaijan is ready to continue this journey in the future. We are currently working on transforming Azerbaijan into a source of production and supply renewable electricity. We also started building photovoltaic parks,” said President Aliyev.