Responding to questioning by Christopher Pincher MP, Chairman, Azerbaijan All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) and member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, he said: “I recently spoke with our Ambassador to Azerbaijan who will be going out to Baku in the next few days. We warmly welcome the announcement of this BP-led consortium, which is a further development of an already extensive relationship between our two countries.”
The question arose following a meeting, hosted by Mr Pincher, between Elmar Mammadyarov, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, and members of the Azerbaijan APPG, for which secretariat support is provided by The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS).
The comments follow the decision on 30 June by the BP-led Shah Deniz Consortium and the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) to construct the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which will bring Caspian gas from the European border of Turkey to Italy. It is estimated that TAP will carry up to 20bn m3 of gas per year after 2019, providing diversity of supply away from Russian sources and ensuring energy security for Europe.
The UK remains the greatest single contributor of Foreign Direct Investment in Azerbaijan, accounting for 44.1 per cent during the first quarter of 2013, according to the Azerbaijani Centre for Economic and Social Development (CESD). It is currently estimated that there are 3,500–4,000 British expats living and working in the country, and around 300 British businesses are active in Azerbaijan.
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