Hungary has announced plans to buy gas from Azerbaijan, in order to bypass Ukraine and be more independent from Russian imports.
“This is extremely important to Hungary because the diversification of gas procurement routes has been on the agenda for a long time, but for various geological and regional reasons this could not be realised so far,” said the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó.
“We are serious about the fact that improving Hungary’s energy security requires us to procure the natural gas consumed in Hungary from several sources. Taking a look around the region, it would seem that one of the most viable scenarios with relation to gas procurement sources could be natural gas shipped from Azerbaijan,” the Minister added.
Azerbaijan already exports 16 billion cubic metres of natural gas to Turkey and the Southeast European region each year, but three new gas fields have been discovered in the Caucasian country, each with a capacity of over 500 billion cubic metres, and preparations have begun for increasing the capacity of the country’s gas pipeline to Southeast Europe from 16 billion cubic metres per year year to 31 billion.
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