Options open: says Socar boss Rovnag Abdullayev
'No country prioritised for Azerbaijan gas'
The president of Azerbaijan's state-owned oil company Socar Rovnag Abdullayev said today no country had been given priority for gas from its Shah-Deniz gas fields and that Baku supported the EU-backed Nabucco project.
The comments cast doubt over a statement made by the head of Russia's state-run gas giant Gazprom last month when he said Azerbaijan had promised Russia priority in buying gas from the second phase of the Shah-Deniz deposit.
"We haven't given priority to any single direction, whether its Russia or Nabucco. We have given political support to Nabucco, we are supporters of Nabucco and give it importance, but we have to look at the conditions," Abdullayev told a news conference in Istanbul.
Both Russia's South Stream natural gas pipeline project and the rival EU-backed Nabucco pipeline have looked to Azeri gas supplies for throughput.
Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told the same news conference that Ankara was still negotiating with the Nabucco Consortium, made up of Turkey, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, for extra gas for its domestic demands.
"The companies have given a guarantee for...supply security, but we have not agreed on the price, we have put our conditions on the table and this is a negotiating process," said Yildiz.
Abdullayev also said he thought Turkey and Azerbaijan would not go to international arbitration over disputed gas prices between the two countries.
A Turkish spokesman said that an agreement between Turkey and Azerbaijan over the price Ankara will pay for Shah-Deniz gas would most likely be reached today.