ECONOMY
New sources of natural gas making their way into European markets are virtually always a good thing, Ambassador Matthew Bryza
Baku, October 12, AZERTAC
“New sources of natural gas making their way onto European markets are virtually always a good thing,” said Ambassador Matthew Bryza in an exclusive interview to Natural Gas Europe at the 25th Economic Forum in Krynica, Poland.
A 23-year veteran of the US Foreign Service who's served both in the White House and the US State Department (most notably as US Ambassador to Azerbaijan), today Ambassador Bryza is Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and heads the Energy Program at the International Center for Defense and Security in Tallin, Estonia.
Ambassador Bryza said about Southern Gas Corridor: “It's going to happen: the gas contracts have all been let and the commitments are there to buy all the gas, so that's not a problem.”
"As long as the EU's easternmost members are not connected physically to the natural gas or electricity markets of the EU, as is the case now in the Baltic States except for two electricity connections between Estonia and Finland, Europe is not whole and there can't be a unified energy market."
“So there's a lot of unfinished business, but what we've heard in Krynica is, the vision is there, the EU knows what it needs to do, the Baltic States know what they need to do. Poland is willing, but sometimes its strategic attention is diverted westward or southward with a lot of unfinished business still eastward.”
"SOCAR has sold a piece of its stake in the Trans Anatolian Pipeline to Goldman Sachs recently. You could look at it the opposite way, that the investment has become so attractive that Goldman Sachs wants a piece of it, and SOCAR doesn't need to be the investor.