BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- The State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan said it expects to finish its assessment of proposals for European gas transit within two weeks.
Project consortia managing the Nabucco, the Interconnector Turkey-Greece, and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, last week submitted proposals to Azerbaijan. Baku said it would deliver as much as 350 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year from its Shah Deniz-2 project in the Caspian Sea through whichever project it picks.
SOCAR President Rovnaq Abdullayev was quoted by Azeri news agency ABC.Az as saying the assessment would be finished around Oct. 20.
"This process will take time as it includes a wide package of documents," he said. "The consortium experts should submit us their summary after the assessment."
All of the projects are part of the so-called Southern Corridor of transit networks for European consumers. Europe is looking to secure gas from Azerbaijan as a way to break Russia's grip on the regional energy sector.
Political disputes with Ukraine make conventional networks for Russian natural gas for Europe risky. Russia, for its part, is moving its gas around Ukraine through its Nord Stream pipeline to Germany and plans similar action through its proposed South Stream network.
