Balkans to Benefit from SGC: Aliev

Seven countries – Azerbaijan, Georgia. Turkey, Greece,  Albania, Italy, and Bulgaria – are already involved in to the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) that will deliver gas from Caspian to Europe, and three Balkan countries may join SGC in the near future, the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev told the World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul July 10.

“That’s to say, we are expanding this project’s geography and can further expand it in the future as everyone involved benefits from the initiative,” he said. Upstream, the Shah Deniz field is 93% complete. The other project components – South Caucasus gas pipeline expansion, the TransAnatolian Pipeline and TransAdriatic Pipeline are 83%, 77%, and 44% done respectively, he said.

Gas supplies from Azerbaijan and the set up of the Balkan gas hub are priorities for Bulgaria, the country’s prime minister Boyko Borisov said at the same presidential session of WPC. Bulgaria is working on a new gas interconnector with Turkey, Greece, and Serbia, he said, presenting the Balkan European gas hub project. “Bulgaria is an important actor in the Balkans and an important actor in its capabilities with its gas transmission networks. Currently around 16.7bn m³ of gas pass through Bulgaria’s networks thanks to our host Turkey, he said.

That will change when TurkStream starts, allowing more gas to flow directly from Russia to Turkey by end-2019; currently there is 14bn m³/yr capacity in the two TransBalkan pipelines. According to him, almost 80%  of all compressor stations in the Balkans are in Bulgaria.

“I would like to encourage everyone to very actively continue to work on the next gas corridor project," he said, explaining that focus needs to be placed on the new projects via Bulgaria and Serbia as the proposed Nabucco West natural gas pipeline project from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria failed to get off the ground.

Serbia wants to host one of the strings of TurkStream pipeline which will pump Russian gas to Europe, Serbia’s president  Aleksander Vucic reportedly told the WPC. "Considering the fact that the TurkStream pipeline is currently under construction, Serbia expects an agreement under which one branch will go through the territories of Serbia and western Balkan countries," he said.

Borisov told reporters on the sideline of WPC that the country is planning later this week to sign an intergovernmental agreement with Serbia on hosting a connector to TurkStream. Bulgaria could transit up to 10bn m³/yr from TurkStream onwards to Serbia.

Serbia's location – it borders eight other countries – has not been fully used. "With regard to electricity networks, interconnectors are quite developed and are continuously being improved. However, for oil and gas networking, the situation is more different, not only in Serbia but also in the region. It requires strong political and financial support for the region to realise the previously identified big infrastructure projects as well as in developing new ones," Vucic said. According to him central and eastern European countries, including  Serbia, are mostly dependent on imports for oil and gas.

The possibility of gas from another Russian project, the Nord Stream pipeline or other gas sources through interconnections could be acceptable depending on gas prices for end users in southeastern Europe, Vucic said. "Additionally, we are also closely monitoring the news regarding gas resources in the east Mediterranean," the Serbian president said.

Kama Mustafayeva