Turkish export route sought for extra Azeri gas

Azerbaijan is in talks with BP and Turkey's Botas on the export of excess gas volumes for the next six years, the state energy company said, providing a source of gas for European consumers keen to cut dependence on Russia.
"SOCAR has some free volumes of gas, and we are ready to sell 1 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to Bulgaria," Murad Heydarov, adviser to SOCAR's president, told reporters, referring to an annual volume on offer.
"We started talks with BP and Botas about deliveries of these small volumes to south-east Europe and using their infrastructure," he added.
It was not immediately clear which route could carry the additional gas.
Bulgaria needs 4-5 bcm per year, almost all of which is purchased from Russia. Azerbaijan, for its part, has been receptive to overtures from proponents of a so-called "southern corridor", promising to help diversify sales away from Russia.
Azerbaijan currently sells gas in the domestic market, to neighbouring Georgia and Turkey via the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline and to Russia. The pipeline pumps gas from the Shah Deniz field at a full capacity of 5 bcm per year.
Heydarov did not specify when deliveries could start.
"We should clarify how technically possible it is to deliver SOCAR's excess gas to the western border of Turkey with the European Union through the existing infrastructure," he said.
BIG GAS
SOCAR and its partners must pick from four contenders to carry gas from the second phase of Shah Deniz, about 10 bcm.
The European Union, keen to establish alternatives to Russian gas, is backing the 33 bcm, 3,000 km Nabucco pipeline project, but the top EU energy official has said it will be "very expensive" at 10 billion euros.
The U.S. energy envoy to the region, Richard Morningstar, said Nabucco still had Washington's political backing but suggested they choose as a first option something cheaper and more scaleable to the gas volumes available.
But the two smaller consortia -- the Trans Adriatic Pipeline and Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy -- propose to run their pipelines through Greece and could run into financial obstacles if Greece defaults or exits the euro zone.
In the debate surrounding the routes, a dark-horse option has emerged in the form of a pipeline backed by BP, one of Azeri national oil company SOCAR's partners in Shah Deniz.
A source at SOCAR, which has said Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum will be inadequate to handle Shah Deniz II and has proposed a new Azerbaijan-Turkey route, said the company was trying to bring in BP as a partner on that proposal too.
"BP is not interested yet in a construction of a new big gas pipeline on the territories of Azerbaijan and Turkey to the EU border, because it operates the existing pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, which ships gas from the first phase of Shah Deniz," he said.
"SOCAR is trying to change BP's mind as BP itself expects to get more gas from other projects in Azerbaijan," he added.
BP declined to comment.
Azerbaijan expects gas production to increase to 50 bcm per year by 2025 from the 25.3 bcm expected this year.
"The expected substantial rise in gas production explains SOCAR's interest in such pipelines, which can react to planned rises in exports in a flexible way," the source said.
Source: Reuters