BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 14. Azerbaijan sees broad potential to expand energy cooperation with the Czech Republic beyond crude oil supplies, including natural gas and renewables, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan on special assignments Elchin Amirbayov said in an interview with Czech media, Trend reports.
“It would be fair to say that about one-third of the oil which is used by the Czech Republic comes from Azerbaijan. This cooperation could be expanded to other areas. It could also cover natural gas,” he said.
According to Amirbayov, Azerbaijan has significantly diversified its gas export geography in recent years.
“Today, Azerbaijan is one of the leading countries in the world in terms of the number of countries recipients of natural gas in different regions. Today, we export natural gas to 16 nations in the world, 10 of which are members of the European Union. Most recently, Austria and Germany joined that list,” he noted.
He also outlined perspectives for cooperation in the field of green energy.
“We also could expand the energy portfolio to cover renewable sources of energy, because Azerbaijan has an enormous potential in solar and wind energy and electricity. There are some projects that we are discussing with some members of the European Union and regional countries on how to diversify the energy sources to Europe,” Amirbayov said.
At the same time, he stressed that further expansion of gas supplies will require infrastructure upgrades and investment.
“In order for us to increase the number of volumes of gas to new countries, of course, we need some additional investment in the upstream development, but also in the expansion of the transmission capacity of the existing infrastructure. Because the southern gas corridor through which we are exporting our natural gas to Europe is fully booked already. We need some additional capacity, and for that, the EU and Azerbaijan need to work together,” he added.