Azerbaijan isn’t reexporting Russian gas to EU, Brussels insists

The European Union remains confident that a series of energy deals with COP29 host Azerbaijan aren’t creating a back door for more Russian gas to reach the continent, the European Commission said Monday.

“The Southern Gas Corridor, which supplies the EU markets, is only connected to Azerbaijani gas fields, not to the broader Azerbaijani natural gas system,” said Tim McPhie, the Commission’s spokesperson on energy affairs, responding to a question from POLITICO. “So therefore the Southern Gas Corridor does not transport Russian gas to the EU.”

As part of the EU’s efforts to end reliance on Russia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed a landmark agreement with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in 2022, designed to double the bloc’s imports from the South Caucasus country by 2027.

Since then, Russia’s Gazprom and Azerbaijan’s state energy giant SOCAR have also struck a string of agreements to “broaden the multifaceted strategic partnership” between the two companies and bolster a transport corridor between the neighboring countries.

While reliable figures on the flows of natural gas have proven hard to come by, an analysis in June from Chatham House alleged that “Russian gas is being laundered through Azerbaijan and Turkey to meet continued high European demands.” President Aliyev has previously blasted claims that Azerbaijan is reexporting Russian gas to the EU as “fake news.”

The Commission did not rule out concerns that Azerbaijan is offsetting its gas exports to the EU by importing more Russian gas to meet domestic demand, potentially still benefitting Moscow.

In the first quarter of this year, around 7 percent of all the EU’s pipeline gas was imported from Azerbaijan, and the country has so far sold around 10 billion cubic meters to Europe this year. According to McPhie, “the information we have is that Azerbaijan imported less than a billion cubic meters of gas per year from Russia for its domestic consumption in the last two years.”

Pressed on the origin of those figures, McPhie said he would “have to double check where that information comes from,” but that the EU has “a variety of sources from which we get information.” He added that the picture was “quite clear,” but that it is “always important to remember that you can’t trace individual molecules of gas.”

While official figures are lacking in detail, an initial contract from the end of 2022 showed a billion cubic meters of gas would be shipped from Russia to Azerbaijan by the first quarter of 2023.

Last week, Azerbaijan’s foreign policy chief, Hikmet Hajiyev, wrote online that “in 2024, Azerbaijan has not imported any gas from Russia. Period! Azerbaijan’s gas production is carried out in cooperation with international partners. The production and export volumes are clearly visible to everyone.”

Azerbaijani media, meanwhile, cites official data as showing that Azerbaijan imported 141.6 million cubic meters of gas from Russia this year.

A European Parliament resolution in October called on the Commission to reassess its energy ties with Baku over “continuous human rights abuses and fears that increased gas imports from Azerbaijan to the EU might be compensated in turn by Baku importing Russian gas.”

Azerbaijan summoned the head of the EU delegation to the country over the resolution, accusing parts of the bloc of launching a “smear campaign against Azerbaijan through various institutions of the EU” and “interfering with its internal affairs.”