Vestnik Kavkaza: Gas market of Moscow and Baku

In the last two weeks Russian and Azerbaijani media have been flooded with information about discords between Moscow and Baku over the South Stream project, killed off by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ankara. The information appeared right after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s interview with Russia 24. Russian media have been offering informative and analytical articles about the disadvantage of Azerbaijan’s Southern Gas Corridor as an alternative to South Stream. Azerbaijani media have been casting doubts about the prospects of the new Russian project as inferior to the Trans-Anatolia Pipeline (TANAP) for delivery of gas to Europe.

Overall, it created a picture of competition between the Azerbaijani and Russian pipeline projects. Official statements by the European Union prioritizing the Southern Gas Corridor as an element of energy security only added heat to the two-week debates. Russia and Azerbaijan appeared to be direct competitors on the European gas market, as though they had not been developing political and economic relations in the last 1.5 years.  MORE