Azerbaijan's SOCAR Sees Business Opportunities in Austria

Azerbaijan's SOCAR said that Austria is a "natural market" for Azeri gas, adding that new developments in ACG Deep, Absheron, Umid and Shafag-Asiman would boost gas exports. 

"We see the pipeline route towards Austria as a natural market for this gas," SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said in a statement.

Azerbaijan's state-owned energy company SOCAR is emerging as a major regional energy player. After more than a decade of diplomatic and commercial wrangling, the so-called Southern Gas Corridor from the Caspian Sea to EU markets was determined by the company this week. 

The BP-led consortium and SOCAR chose Trans-Adriatic Pipeline over its rival Nabucco West. Austria's OMV was the primary commercial player in the Nabucco project. TAP will move Caspian natural gas through Greece and Albania to Italy while Nabucco West would have snaked through Central Europe to Austria's distribution hub at Baumgarten.

Recently, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that the new corridor could eventually provide 10% of EU natural gas needs.