BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 5. South Eastern Europe and Balkans sub-region remain one of the key destinations of strategic outlook of Azerbaijan's state oil company (SOCAR), Murad Heydarov, Executive Director of SOCAR for the Balkans, said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
"In 2025, we continued our activities in the field of gas supply and cross border transmission, development of gas distribution projects, crude oil supply and deeper penetration into oil products domestic markets, renewables and gas to power energy generation," he said.
Speaking about specific projects, Heydarov noted that jointly with its partner – Asarel Group – SOCAR implemented and finalized FEED (Front End Engineering Design) Works for construction of the gas distribution network in Bulgaria’s Panagyurishte. "Their results require further analysis and evaluations. This will be the focus of our collective activities in 2026."
Moreover, he said SOCAR ended up 2025 with promising results out of the hybrid gasification project supplying compressed natural gas (CNG) to regions not connected to the Bulgargaz network.
"We delivered our gas to 46 industrial and 5 social clients including a mosque and a church in the Ruse province. The overall volume of gas delivered reached almost 80 million cubic meters in 2025," SOCAR Balkan's executive director added.
As for activities in the petroleum products market in Bulgaria, Heydarov said SOCAR is still evaluating commercial opportunities and perspectives amid initial pilot transactions. "You should understand the complexity of entering the market dominated by a traditional supplier. However, we see a lot of benefits for us to continue our efforts to expand."
He noted that aggregated Azerbaijan Gas Supply Company (AGSC) and SOCAR gas supply volumes to Bulgaria in 2025 amounted slightly below 2 bcma which is almost the same volume delivered in 2024. "The projections for this and next years depend on market demand in Bulgaria and our regional gas portfolio."
Talking about SOCAR's activities in Albania, Heydarov recalled that the company presented the NUR pilot gasification project at the public hearing in Korça in the presence of Prime-Minister of Albania Edi Rama and Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan Parviz Shahbazov.
"We started Front End Engineering Design works targeting to get final results by the end of this year. In parallel to that business stream, SOCAR Gas Albania started all necessary technical and commercial studies to check if we could implement an advanced supply of CNG volumes to Korça ahead of building a gas distribution network in the city. We look optimistically to start commercial supplies by the end of 2026. The draft Host Government Agreement with Albania has been developed, further necessary steps will need to be taken to progress on this," he added.
Regarding the possibility of SOCAR’s expanding gasification projects to other regions of Albania, Heydarov said this is not envisaged at the initial stage of the project but the company does not exclude to reach out to other locations in the vicinity of Korça city at next stages.