The countries which depend on external energy supplies must be sure that the supplies will be sustainable and long-term, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said.

Axar.az reports that he made the remarks at 5th Ministerial Meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) Advisory Council at the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku.

“The Southern Gas Corridor is a project of energy security,” the president said. “Because we all understand that without energy security it is difficult to provide national security. So, energy security is an integral part of the country’s national security. And the countries which depend on external energy supplies, of course, they need to be sure that the supplies will be sustainable, and long-term.”

“So that they can plan their future, the industrial development,” President Aliyev added. “At the same time, the countries which produce and which are rich with energy resources without reliable markets, they cannot achieve their goal. Therefore, it is a project of energy security, energy diversification, energy cooperation and broad international cooperation.”

“Therefore, today’s format of the meeting really demonstrates that we managed to establish the very broad format of international cooperation, financial institutions, companies, countries and all of us have the same goal,” he stressed. “And all of us believe in the implementation of the project, and we believe that it will be a long-term success story for all of us.”

“As far as Azerbaijan’s gas reserves are concerned, proven reserves are at the level of 2.6 trillion cubic meters,” the president said. “Of course Shah Deniz is the main gas reservoir of Azerbaijan, but at the same time, there are other fields, which are now in the process of exploration, and soon I think we will have good results from Absheron field.”

“I am sure that in the nearest future we will start to extract gas from there, and also, the very promising field is Umid-Babak, which also has a huge gas potential and other fields,” he said. “Therefore, I am sure that Shah Deniz will not be the only resource base for the Southern Gas Corridor, and the more gas is extracted from our fields the more potential will be to supply our partners and to diversify the supply network which we are talking about.”

“And of course, energy cooperation projects, they play a very important role in cooperation in other areas, particularly I would mention transportation,” the president said. “Because today Azerbaijan is becoming the transportation centre of Eurasia.”

“East-West and North-South transportation corridors cross our countries,” President Aliyev said. “We invested largely in modern transportation infrastructure, Baku Sea Port, Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad which connects Europe and Asia, highways, Caspian shipping, airports, all that was possible because of the revenues we got from oil and gas sales. So, we redirected the revenues to the sectors which will generate additional wealth, and which will also serve our common cause. Because of transportation projects as well as energy projects, they unite countries.”

“Countries become interconnected, interdependent and everybody gets the benefit,” the president said. “Therefore, energy security projects we see their benefit in other areas.”