Azerbaijan to start gas talks with Greece soon
BAKU (Reuters) – Azerbaijan announced yesterday it would start talks in April with European consumers, including Greece, on gas supplies from its fields running through a planned BP-led export pipeline to Turkey and possibly other states. «We will hold talks not only with Greece but with other European countries. But I think it is too premature to make our position public and to talk about volumes and shipping terms,» an official with the Azeri state oil firm SOCAR told reporters. Valekh Aleskerov, the head of SOCAR’s investment department, said that talks with Greece were at the most advanced stage and SOCAR expected a delegation from Athens to arrive in Baku on April 22-23. An international group led by BP plans to launch the first $2.6-billion phase of the gas project in Azerbaijan in July this year. The first phase envisages the construction of a gas production platform at the giant Shakh Deniz field in the Azeri Caspian Sea sector and a pipeline through Georgia to link up with a new Turkish-built line. Last year, Azerbaijan signed an agreement to supply energy-hungry Turkey with 2 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas from 2004-2005, rising to 6.6 bcm by around 2007. BP said output from Shakh Deniz could potentially rise to 16 bcm annually. Turkey and Greece last month signed a $300-million agreement to build the first ever pipeline between the two traditionally hostile neighbors to carry Caspian Sea gas to Europe via the two countries.
