Italian expert: Azerbaijani gas saved Italy from deindustrialization

Matteo Villa, Head of the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) DataLab, said that the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) saved Italy from deindustrialization, according to Azerbaijan in Focus, reporting  Trend News Agency.

“For Italy, 2022 was an important year in terms of diversification. We have the TAP, which, in 2021, saved us all. We have worked as much as possible to keep close to suppliers, such as Algeria, and Azerbaijan as well as diversifying,” he said.

Matteo Villa thinks that Italy has to take all measures to way out of this crisis and survive another year and equip itself with new infrastructure.

With the completion of the TAP construction on December 31, 2020, Azerbaijan began commercial gas supplies to Europe via the Southern Gas Corridor. The SGC is an initiative of the European Commission for a natural gas supply route from the Caspian and Middle Eastern regions to Europe. The route from Azerbaijan to Europe consists of the South Caucasus Pipeline, TANAP, and TAP.

In 2021, TAP transported 8.1 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe. In 2023, Azerbaijan plans to increase gas supplies to Europe to 11 billion cubic meters. As of 2022, Azerbaijan exported 9.3 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe in the first ten months and was expected to supply 11.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe by the end of 2022.