By Trend

In fact, Azerbaijan has had already for the long time plan to extend the Southern Gas Corridor because of several factors, said Azerbaijan’s energy minister Parviz Shahbazov addressing the energy security panel at Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Trend reports.

“First of all, we have enormous offshore gas resources in Azerbaijan. It is 2.6 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves. It is enough for us and our partners in Turkey and in Europe to provide with natural gas for the next hundred years. We have infrastructure in place and we have now increased interest from the consuming countries. If we bring all of them under the same roof and discuss, we will come out with the decision to extend further the Southern Gas Corridor. TANAP has a capacity till 31 billion cubic meters per year, while TAP’s capacity can be expanded to 20 billion cubic meters. I am not talking about long term perspectives, it can be done in mid-term period,” said the minister.

Shahbazov pointed out that gas is the commodity that cannot be extracted and delivered overnight.

“We need to good planning for that. We’ve already established dialogue with EU and other interested parties and Turkey and we will work on it,” he explained.