Europe has a lot of work to do in order to ensure its energy security

Baku/23.02. 23/Turan: The year-long Russian-Ukrainian war led to an energy crisis in Europe, which consumed 155 billion cubic meters of Russian gas a year, but in support of Ukraine adopted a package of sanctions against the Russian Federation and reduced purchases of Russian gas to 7%.

The US is helping Europe overcome the energy crisis and out of the total sales of liquefied natural gas (LNG) around the world, about 2/3 were sent to Europe, said a senior researcher at the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University (USA) Jonathan Elkind on February 22 at a round table on energy security and the role of Azerbaijan, organized by the US Embassy in virtual mode.

"This became possible due to the fact that there were pandemic restrictions in China, which is among the buyers of American LNG, this winter, and LNG flows were redirected to the EU, which was also lucky with a warm winter. However, I think that the upcoming winter may be more difficult, and the EU is actively negotiating with all gas suppliers, excluding the Russian Federation," the expert said.

To his thinking, Azerbaijan, which has been supplying gas to the EU via the Southern Gas Corridor for more than 2 years, is trying to find sources of additional gas supply to the Eurozone, "to some extent contributes to the elimination of the energy crisis, although, of course, it cannot fully cover the large needs of Europe."

"Norway and the United States are trying to raise supplies to the Eurozone, and there are flows from other countries. The EU is also increasing a share of renewable energy sources and also considers it important that Azerbaijan is actively developing renewable energy and green hydrogen projects, and even plans to export them," Elkind said.

In his opinion, the Caspian region is important from the point of view of Europe's energy security.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline project proved this at the time, and now the Southern Gas Corridor also confirms it.

Also, the American expert voiced his hope that Turkmenistan will turn its eyes to the West and help Europe with gas supplies through the territory of Azerbaijan.

"Geographically, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are located close across the Caspian Sea and technically it is easy to arrange deliveries from Ashgabat. In addition to the Turkmen gas sales to China and the Russian Federation, it could go to Europe, and there is hope for the implementation of the Trans—Caspian pipeline," Elkind said.

The expert believes that Europe has a lot of work to do in order to ensure its energy security in the coming winter, without violating its tasks under the "Green Deal".—0—