Italy intends to import more gas from Azerbaijan

Italy increased its natural gas imports from Azerbaijan in October 2023 to 881.2 mln m³, up from 800.5 mln m³ in September, the European Union's statistical office Eurostat stated, Azernews reports.

This represents an increase of more than 10 percent on a month-on-month basis.

In the first ten months of 2023, Italy imported 7.7 bln m³ of gas from Azerbaijan for a total value of over €4 bln.

In October, the value of these imports was 364.2 mln euros, compared to 310.6 mln euros in September, which means an increase of almost 17.3 percent.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan started transporting gas to Europe via the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) on December 31, 2020. It transports gas from the Caspian Sea region to European countries via Georgia and Turkiye.

The cost of the project was $33 bln. The capital expenditure on the SSC is expected to be fully recovered within 8-10 years.

In July 2022, Azerbaijan and the EU agreed to increase the volume of gas supplies through the SSC from the current 10 bln m³ to 20 bln m³ by 2027.

Generally, Azerbaijan's gas exports to Europe in January-September amounted to 8.6 Bcm, up 3.6% from the 8.3 Bcm reported in the year-ago period. Total exports, including to Turkey and Georgia, amounted to 17.8 Bcm, an increase of 9.2% year-on-year.

According to official data, Azerbaijan's total gas production during January-September was 36.1 Bcm, up 4.9% on the year. Of the total, 19.7 Bcm was produced from Shah Deniz, while 9.6 Bcm was produced as associated gas from the ACG oil field. A total of 6.4 Bcm was produced from fields operated by Socar.

Moreover, the country's gas output has also been boosted by the startup in July of the Absheron field, which was reported as having produced 0.4 Bcm since production began.

TotalEnergies and Azerbaijan's state-owned SOCAR announced the start of production at the first phase of Absheron, operated by their JOCAP joint venture, on July 10.

Note that Azerbaijan exports gas to Europe from the Shah Deniz field via the Southern Gas Corridor and has plans to raise exports to 20 Bcm/year by 2027 under a Memorandum of Understanding agreed with the European Commission in July 2022.