The Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan Parviz Shahbazov makes speeches on "Belt and Road Energy Partnership" in China

The Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan Parviz Shahbazov attended the inauguration ceremony of the "Belt and Road Energy Partnership" held within the framework of the Second International Cooperation Forum "Belt and Road" in China. The Minister of Energy Parviz Shahbazov appreciated “Belt and Road Energy Partnership” as a platform for global cooperation and said that this new model of cooperation includes a great deal of energy resources, infrastructure, technology and investment opportunities: “We imagine this cooperation as a platform where opportunity, experience, goodwill of everyone are shared and everyone can meet their needs. Today, it is a fact that, apart from strong, efficient and mutually beneficial cooperation, it is impossible to achieve success alone through energy opportunities. We believe that "Belt and Road Energy Partnership" will be a successful model of cooperation in the energy sector for each country represented in this project”, the Minister said.   

The Minister of Energy also spoke about the participation of Azerbaijan in the initiative of the “Silk Road Economic Belt”, which has become an important transport, logistics and energy center and contributes to international cooperation with energy-communication projects. The Minister highlighted the role of the country's energy policy in the implementation of projects that serve the “Silk Road Economic Belt”. Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Supsa oil pipelines, which are the components of Silk Road Corridor, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline, TANAP and TAP gas pipelines within the “Southern Gas Corridor” project have been mentioned as examples that contribute to energy security, social welfare and mutually beneficial cooperation in a large geographical area. The Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan Parviz Shahbazov spoke at a session on "Infrastructure Relations". The Minister gave detailed information the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway which is the shortest transportation route from China to Europe, Baku International Sea Trade Port that has a capacity of 25 million tons of cargo in the Caspian Sea, other infrastructure projects supported the East-West and North-South transport corridors, as well as oil and gas pipelines. He noted that these infrastructure connections enable multi-faceted and sustainable cooperation with the "Belt and Road" countries.

“It is impossible to obtain great benefits from energy resources without infrastructure. In practice, we see that due to the lack of infrastructure, these resources are only reserved in some advanced countries in the world for its hydrocarbon resources. Azerbaijan has no direct access to the open sea. But the establishment of an oil and gas infrastructure that transports hydrocarbon resources from the Caspian region to the world markets, and the mission of combining seas, regions and continents with energy projects is directly related to its name.”

The Minister also touched upon the importance of the giant infrastructure project “Southern Gas Corridor” which is currently implemented.  He noted that this corridor will allow Azerbaijan to double gas exports to the Turkish market, as well as to enter the markets of Southeast Europe, the Balkan countries, and the Western Europe at the next stage. At the same time, the corridor character of this project will make possible diversification on a larger scale by increasing the number of gas sources, suppliers and consumers in the future.  It was also noted that electricity has been transmitted to Georgia and Turkey through the "East-West" energy corridor created by oil and gas projects for over 4 years. Existing opportunities in the field of electricity exports between Azerbaijan, Russia and Iran create conditions for the North-South energy corridor and work is under way in this direction.

The Minister said that more than $ 800 million investment made by China fell into Azerbaijan`s oil sector, and this is an important indicator of Azerbaijan-China energy cooperation. He said that cooperation with China on oil and gas, petrochemical, oil refinery, oil and oil products trading, reconstruction of power plants could be expanded with new projects such as investment projects, renewable energy and green technologies.

It should be noted that at the inauguration ceremony of the "Belt and Road Energy Partnership", the document called “Cooperation Principles and concrete steps of Partnership” was accepted.