Baku, Rome mull boosting gas supplies to Italy - Aliyev
BAKU. May 5 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan is in talks to increase gas supplies to Italy, President Ilham Aliyev said.
"Naturally, one of the primary directions of our relations is cooperation in the energy sector. Here, too, we have supported each other as reliable partners for many years. Azerbaijan ranks second in Italy's oil imports and also second in its gas supply," Aliyev said in a statement for the press with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Baku on Monday.
"For us, the Italian market is of primary importance for both oil and gas," he said, recalling that 9.5 billion cubic meters of the 25 bcm of natural gas Azerbaijan exported last year went to Italy.
"Today, during our discussions, we discussed increasing this volume. For this, it is necessary to expand the TAP project, which is an integral part of the Southern Gas Corridor. It has already been expanded to a certain extent, but this process must continue," Aliyev said.
Italy is Azerbaijan's top trading partner and bilateral trade between the two countries totalled about $12 billion last year, he said, adding that the Italian market is of great interest to Azerbaijan and this market is growing.
"Over the past few years, the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan has invested approximately $3 billion in the Italian economy. We also discussed channelling these investments into new projects," Aliyev said.
It was reported earlier that Azerbaijan exported 25.2 bcm of gas in 2025, about the same as in 2024. The country exported 12.8 bcm to Europe in 2025.
Azerbaijan began exporting gas to Europe on December 31, 2022, and now has gas supply agreements with 16 countries, including 13 in Europe: Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Germany, Ukraine and Austria.
It has long-term contracts with fixed supply volumes with three countries - Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, a ten-year agreement with Germany's SEFE (Securing Energy for Europe) to gradually increase annual supplies to 15 TWh or about 1.5 bcm, and contracts without specific volumes with the countries.
Azerbaijan also exports gas to Turkey through the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP) and the South Caucasus Pipeline, and to Georgia.
