In the early hours of Monday, 5 May, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will board a flight from Yerevan, where she will participate in the European Political Community summit the day before, to Baku (or maybe Gabala) for a one-day bilateral meeting with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev. This timing was deliberate. The EPC summit in Yerevan on 4 May is a multilateral forum of Europe. But the visit to Baku on 5 May is where Italy conducts its actual energy interests. In an interview with La Repubblica this week, Elchin Amirbayov, Azerbaijan President's Representative for Foreign Policy, noted: "This visit confirms that we consider there is considerable potential for enhancing cooperation in various fields, starting with energy, which Italy represents for us as a main partner." That visit, he could have added, is being made because the pipeline between them is full, and Europe does not want it to be.

In 2025, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline delivered 9.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Azerbaijan to Italy – accounting for roughly 16 percent of Italy's total annual gas consumption requirements, the grid operator of Italy. In less than five years, it has become one of the fastest-ramping new energy infrastructures in Europe, having already supplied more than 47.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas since starting commercial operations in November 2020. Following the completion of its first expansion phase, initiated due to the market test in 2021, TAP has been operating at an increased capacity of 11.2 bcm per year through the installation of a compressor station with a power capacity of 15 megawatts at the Kipoi facility located close to the Turkish-Greek border. Of this extra 1.2 bcm, one billion cubic metres will go to Italy, and the remaining 200 million cubic metres will be delivered to Albania. For the first time, natural gas is being transported northward to Austria and Germany through the new Caspian Corridor.

TAP’s expansion objective was built to accommodate volumes of up to 20 billion cubic meters per year, double its design throughput. The European Union and Azerbaijan committed to expanding the Southern Gas Corridor in a Memorandum of Understanding reached in July 2022, aiming for an increase in supplies to the EU to at least 20 bcm per year, with........

© AzerNews