Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said his country and Turkmenistan "have broad opportunities for cooperation in energy, cotton production, transport, and investment".
The head of state said this on Thursday during a meeting with Serdar Berdymukhamedov, who arrived in Baku for the first time as president of Turkmenistan.
The Turkmen president will attend the COVID-19 Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement as part of his working visit.
The two Caspian countries have ambitious plans for energy. The fact is that in January 2021, Ashgabat and Baku agreed to jointly develop a disputed field in the Caspian Sea, which has been symbolically named Dostluk (Friendship).
A contract is currently being drawn up that would allow Turkmen gas to be connected to the European market by means of the infrastructure of Azerbaijan and Turkey, which has been in place since late 2020. The project is only for small quantities, however.
In the end, Ashgabat is counting on the European Union to support a more ambitious project for the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline stretching 300 km and carrying a capacity of 30bn cubic meters of gas.
However, Russia and Iran, the Caspian littoral states are categorically against the idea, recalling the environmental risks of the Caspian Sea. At the same time, under a wave of sanctions from the West, the two countries themselves would like to control the region's energy market.
It should be noted that at the beginning of 2022, Azerbaijan first began swapping purchases of Turkmen gas through Iran, which has land borders with both countries. Under the contract, Iran can receive up to 3.0-4.0 billion cubic meters of gas annually from Serakhs, Turkmenistan, to deliver the equivalent to Astara, Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan is thus paying off its domestic energy deficit and sending its own gas to solvent Europe via Turkey. Iran also benefits from this open-ended deal, as it helps provide fuel to the northern provinces, which are far from national gas reserves.
Credits: Eziz Boyarov
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