Azerbaijan plans to increase gas supplies to Europe - Aliyev

BAKU. Nov 13 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan plans to increase gas supplies to Europe by opening new fields, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said.

Aliyev took part in a roundtable, "Building a Competitive Europe - Innovation, Connectivity and Affordable Energy" on November 12 in Dublin as part of the ninth summit of the European Political Community.

"Touching upon Azerbaijan's role in ensuring Europe's energy security, the head of state referred to the Memorandum of Understanding on a Strategic Partnership in the Field of Energy signed between Azerbaijan and the European Union in 2022. He noted that since then, Azerbaijan had increased gas supplies to the European Union from 8 billion cubic meters to 13 billion cubic meters. The head of state said that this accounted for nearly half of Azerbaijan's exports. President Ilham Aliyev added that Azerbaijan planned to increase gas supplies further, noting that new fields had been discovered," a statement on the Azerbaijani presidential website said.

The gas pipeline running from Baku to Italy through seven countries and ensuring gas supplies to ten European Union countries through interconnectors in Bulgaria is currently fully loaded, he said. Aliyev stressed the need to expand its throughput capacity, saying that the capacity of the pipeline running to Greece and Italy has been increased from 10 billion to 11.2 billion cubic meters.

The role of alternative energy sources will grow even more in the future, he said.

The total production capacity of Azerbaijan's processing enterprises (domestically and abroad) is 30 million tonnes, Aliyev said.