Ukraine and the EU have asked Azerbaijan to supply natural gas to Europe via Ukraine after the current contract with Russia expires at the end of the year.
This was stated by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, writes Bloomberg.
According to Aliyev, negotiations with Ukraine, the EU, and Russia are still ongoing, but all parties are interested in continuing cooperation.
At the beginning of this month, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine is negotiating the supply of natural gas from Azerbaijan to Europe. Ukraine seeks to maintain its role as a transit state, but no longer wants to be a transit for the supply of gas to the EU from Russia.
The European Union tried to cut off Russian gas after Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but some European states continue to receive it through a gas pipeline that passes through Ukraine.
At the same time, Aliyev warned that if the supply of Russian gas through Ukraine is stopped, such states as Austria and Slovakia may face serious difficulties, as they will have to spend much larger sums on buying gas from other countries. In addition, according to him, Azerbaijan will try to "be careful" because in the past the state was falsely accused of reselling Russian gas.
Aliyev also said that gas production in his country will increase thanks to new and existing fields in the Caspian Sea.
In 2022, Azerbaijan signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Commission, which provides for the doubling of gas exports to Europe to 20 billion cubic meters by 2027. According to Aliyev, the country is moving towards this goal. This year, exports to European countries will increase to almost 13 billion cubic meters from 11.8 billion in 2023 and 8 billion in 2021.