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US analyst: â€œOnce Azerbaijan and Turkey have agreed on this gas transit issue, there are no more obstacles for Azerbaijani gas to flow into European marketsâ€

24 November 2011 09:22 (UTC +04:00)

Jan Sir, energy expert at Johns Hopkins University’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, considers that Turkey and Azerbaijan were able to make progress in setting the terms for gas transit.

He says, both Nabucco and the new signed Trans-Anatolian are part of the EU-backed Southern Gas Corridor and the Trans-Anatolian is supposed to allow shipping Azerbaijani gas from the Shah Deniz II which probably wonâ€™t be operational before the end of this decade, â€œso it should be merely a supplement (additional throughput) for this new guaranteed gas from Azerbaijan, if everything goes wellâ€, he adds.

Samuel Lusac, who also contributes to the Central Asia Caucasus Institute, says, the Izmir agreements are a critical and significant step towards the implementation of the Southern gas Corridor.

â€œThe incapacity of Azerbaijan and Turkey to find an agreement on the issue of gas transit over the last couple of years has cast a shadow over the opening of
this corridor. While Nabucco rejected the expectations of the Shah Deniz consortium, concerns rise about the feasibility of TAP and ITGI projects in the absence of such transit agreementsâ€, he says.

According to the analyst, once Azerbaijan and Turkey have agreed on this gas transit issue, there are no more obstacles for Azerbaijani gas to flow into European markets.