Azeri gas is gushing into CEE
Hungary's MVM Group closed on 30 August the acquisition of a 5% stake in one of the world's largest deep sea gas condensate field, Shah Deniz in the territory of Azerbaijan, and a 4% stake in Azerbaijan Gas Supply Company Limited (AGSC), the exclusive special-purpose vehicle established for the marketing and sale of the natural gas produced from Shah Deniz gas-condensate field.
Shah Deniz, one of the world’s largest natural gas-condensate fields can produce up to 29 billion cubic meters of natural gas and roughly 60 million barrels of condensate annually. The field has significant hydrocarbon reserves and has been producing reliably and steadily for almost 20 years. A total of more than 225 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 380 million barrels of condensate have been produced from the field since inception.
Shah Deniz is an unincorporated partnership operated by bp on behalf of its owners. The extracted natural gas is delivered from the offshore gas-condensate field via pipelines to Azerbaijani, Georgian, Turkish and European partners based on long-term gas sales and transportation agreements concluded with AGSC.
On Monday, SOCAR announced that it had started selling gas to Croatia from 1 September, in cooperation with the Croatian PPD and the Swiss MET Group, and the announcement only revealed that
Croatia had become the tenth country to which Azerbaijan exports gas.
Prior to that, Azeri exports to Slovenia started on 1 August, and SOCAR has previously signed supply agreements with Türkiye, Georgia, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Serbia.
The Azeri company started exporting to Europe via the Southern Gas Corridor (TAP and TANAP) from the end of 2020, and in 2023 it exported a total of 23.8 billion cubic metres of natural gas, which could reach 25 billion cubic metres this year, of which 13 billion cubic metres could actually be exported to the European Union.
Cover photo: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
