Azerbaijan in Need of European Gas Demand Assurances

Azerbaijan seeks European guarantees that demand for its gas will sustain after 2027 according to deputy foreign minister Elnur Mammadov.

• "Currently there's a desperate need for Europe to find alternative suppliers," Mammadov told the Financial Times. "We need to be sure that this . . . is not a sort of spontaneous demand [...] which one day will end and then all of a sudden you start buying back from Russia and say, 'hey, well we don't now need the gas'," he said.
• He added that Azerbaijan needs investment support from all interested parties, including the EU, to increase the countries capabilities to double its gas output.
• Azerbaijan and the EU signed an MOU in July which sets out the intentions for Azerbaijan to increase gas supply to the EU to 20 bcm by 2027.
• With the heavy investments required to develop new EU energy needs, the bloc has been eager to stress that environmental targets remain in place. A reluctance to invest in European oil and gas infrastructure in recent years due to environmental targets has left European energy security exposed to the significant changes in energy flows this year.