Strategic Imperative: Azerbaijani Gas Strategy and the EU’s Southern Corridor
The joint report titled “Strategic Imperative: Azerbaijani Gas Strategy and the EU’s Southern Corridor” has been published in the 5th issue of the SAM Review Journal of the Center for Strategic Studies of Azerbaijan.
Authors Gulmira Rzayeva and Theodoros G.R. Tsakiris examine in considerable detail the geopolitical, economic, commercial and technical aspects regarding the selection of the main export route for the transportation of natural gas from the second stage of the Shah Deniz project to Europe via Turkey. The authors analyze the different views and priorities of state, interstate and corporate actors that make up the protagonists of Europe's Southern Gas Corridor Strategy.
The paper also analyzes the different corporate perspectives focusing on SOCAR’s strategic goals as well as the pros and cons of the two remaining pipeline projects. The authors believe that both the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Nabucco West offer significant value to Azerbaijan and SOCAR.
TAP is perceived as more commercially antagonistic project, which nevertheless lacks the solid political support that Nabucco West enjoys, not only from the states it transits through but also from the European Commission itself.
The full report can be viewed at: http://www.sam.gov.az/uploads/files/SAM%20Review-5%20for_print.pdf
About the Authors: Ms. Gulmira Rzayeva is a research fellow at the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Her area of expertise include energy security covering issues such as the energy policy of Azerbaijan and Black Sea/Caspian region energy security. As part of her engagements in the field of energy security, she has worked at the Moscow Carnegie Center as a visiting research fellow. Her other engagements in this field include a fellowship awarded by the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Silk Road Studies Program, a program of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University/USA financed by the Rumsfeld Foundation, USA.
Dr. Theodoros G.R. Tsakiris is aSenior Analyst and the journal’s editor for Iran and the Caspian Sea Region at the Middle East Economic Survey. He is also the Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of ELIAMEP’s Geopolitics of Energy Programme. Since 2002 Dr. Tsakiris has worked as a Research Fellow on issues of U.S. and EU Foreign and Security Policy, Post-Soviet Studies, and Energy Security policy in the Greek Foreign Ministry, during the Hellenic Presidency of the EU in 2002-2003, the Institute for International Economic Relations of the Greek Association of S.A. & Ltd companies, the Institute for Defense Analyses of the Hellenic Ministry of Defense and the Hellenic Center for European Studies (E.K.E.M.).