Azerbaijan starts gas shipments to Hungary, plans to increase them - Foreign Minister

BAKU. Sept 6 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan plans to increase gas supplies to Hungary, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said.

"At a meeting [on September 4 in Budapest], my colleague Peter Szijjarto said that Azerbaijani gas has already begun to flow to Hungary. Our plans are to increase shipment volumes," Bayramov said in an interview with the Azerbaijani state news agency Azertaj and Hungary's Magyar Democrata publication.

Five EU countries already receive Azerbaijani gas: Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, he said.

"Some other countries also showed interest and expressed a desire. In April this year, the energy companies of Azerbaijan, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia signed an agreement called the "Ring of Solidarity" with the aim of using internal European gas interconnectors to increase the volume of Caspian gas supplied to them through the Southern Gas Corridor," he said.

"The plans, as you can see, are big. Europe expects to receive 20 bcm of gas from us by 2027. Current dynamics allow us to meet this bar. Azerbaijan [in 2021] shipped 8 bcm [to the EU], last year, it already reached 11.4 bcm, and this year it will be 12.5 bcm, and this is only to the EU. In addition to the EU, Azerbaijan is also the main supplier of natural gas to Georgia and one of the largest to the Turkish market," Bayramov said.

Apart from oil and gas, Azerbaijan plans to supply "green energy" to Hungary, the Foreign Minister said. "On July 18, 2022, a Memorandum of Understanding on strategic partnership in the energy sector between Azerbaijan and the European Union was signed, and on December 17, 2022, a memorandum of understanding was signed in Bucharest on the establishment of a joint venture comprised of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary to implement a project for the transfer of Azerbaijani "green" electricity along the bottom of the Black Sea to the European continent. Electricity of "green" origin is another area of Azerbaijani-Hungarian cooperation in energy. Meanwhile, I should note that everything that has been said will rightly be projected onto the entire European Union," the minister said.

Earlier it was reported that Azerbaijan planned to start shipping gas to Hungary in Q4 2023, with 100 mcm shipped by year-end. Hungary will also purchase 50 mcm for its gas storage facilities in 2023. Baku and Budapest have agreed to increase Azerbaijani gas shipments to Hungary to 1 bcm per year.