Azerbaijan doubles gas sales to Russia

Azerbaijan has more than doubled its natural-gas exports to Russia, shipping up to 3 million cubic meters of gas per day to its northern neighbor as of March 5, the Russian energy giant Gazprom announced March 9. EurasiaNet reported the news on its Web site.

“Our cooperation with Azerbaijan is gaining pace,” Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti agency. “We are happy about this and we want to reaffirm that Gazprom is ready to purchase all the gas Azerbaijan supplies in the future.”

The up-tick in supplies comes amid ongoing attempts by the European Union and the United States to kick-start the Nabucco pipeline project as an alternative to Russian energy sources.

Gazprom and its Azerbaijani partner SOCAR, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic, signed an all-you-can-sell gas-supply deal last year. In January, Gazprom said it would purchase up to 1 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas in 2010, and double the amount in the following year.