EUROPEAN ENERGY CRISIS: BETWEEN DECARBONIZATION AND GROWING ENERGY DEMAND- OCTOBER 2021

Gas prices are expected to remain high well beyond 2025.29 Given that the Dutch government decided to shut down the gas extraction from the giant Groningen gas field – the largest natural gas field in Europe and the tenth-largest in the world – by 2022, the EU will not be able to count on its own gas production, which means that for the foreseeable future it will remain heavily dependent on the Ru. [...] Today, Azerbaijan is supplying the first natural gas from the Caspian region to Europe, and in this way, the country contributes to the energy security of the European partners. [...] It is worth underlying that despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the Second Karabakh War, the SGC has been successfully finalized, and the first deliveries of the Azerbaijani gas to Europe have been realized on December 31, 2020.38 Delivering the Azerbaijani gas to the European energy consumers via Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which is the European segment of the SGC, was a historic event. [...] TCP is a project which supports diversification of gas sources and routes for the EU, and the gas pipeline to the EU from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan via Georgia and Turkey, known as the combination of “Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline” (TCP), “South-Caucasus Pipeline Future Expansion” (SCPFX) became the “Project of Common Interest” for the EU. [...] Azerbaijan has transported 5 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe via TAP since the commencement of gas flows via the pipeline in December 202040, and the pipeline will carry 8 bcm of natural gas from Azerbaijan to the European markets by the end of 2021.41 Taking into consideration the above-mentioned, we can underline that the SGC created the backbone for interregional cooperation.