By Trend

The Southern Gas Corridor offers great opportunities for the countries which are not crossed by this pipeline, Francis Perrin, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South (PCNS, Rabat) and at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS, Paris), told Trend.

"Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine the European Union has launched a search for new sources of natural gas as the 27 member states have decided to get rid of Russian gas in a medium-term horizon. Over the last months the EU has concluded three agreements with gas exporting countries, one with the U.S. (the largest gas-producing country in the world and a key liquefied natural gas - LNG - exporter), another with Egypt and Israel (Eastern Mediterranean) and the third one with Azerbaijan. Italy signed a gas agreement with Algeria, Germany will import LNG from Abu Dhabi and France is negotiating with Algeria for additional gas supplies," he said.

Perrin pointed out that the U.S. will export more LNG, Egypt and Israel will also export more LNG and Azerbaijan will increase its exports through the existing gasline network, the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), which links Azerbaijan to the EU through Georgia and Turkey.

"The aim is to double to 20 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year the capacity of the SGC by 2027. It is of course an important target as the EU decided last spring to stop importing Russian gas by 2027 approximately. Azerbaijan's gas supplies to the EU are already on a rising trend. They reached 8.1 bcm in 2021 and should amount to 12 bcm in 2022," the expert added.

Perrin noted that the existence of the SGC offers interesting opportunities for other countries than those which are directly crossed by it.

"The last step of the SGC is the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP - Greece/Albania/Adriatic Sea and Italy). Various connection options are possible from these countries towards South-East European and Central European countries. And Italy is part of an interconnected gas network within the EU. These two elements strengthen the strategic importance of the SGC for the EU in such an exceptional period. TAP can also be used in a reverse flow mode, which means that Italy could send gas to South-East Europe under certain circumstances. And in the longer-term hydrogen could be transported through TAP. The SGC is thus a strategic energy project for the EU in a short-term, mid-term and long-term horizon," he added.