Natural gas has recently played an essential role in the socio-economic development of countries, as well as in the energy transition, Azerbaijan's Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said during the Russian Energy Week in Moscow, Report informs.
"This gives us a concrete message that in the coming decades, natural gas will have a crucial role as one of the main components of the energy transition," said the minister.
According to him, today, "green energy" is developing quite dynamically: "To know this, it is enough to look at the events taking place in this field, the investments in this field."
Shahbazov noted that 250 gigawatts of renewable energy were generated in the world in 2021, and $360 billion was invested in this field: "This is more than the funds invested in hydrocarbon resources. All these facts show that 'green energy' will continue to develop."
The minister said that the main issue here is how painful this process will be: "Of course, we need a logical energy transition process, and we have to plan it logically. As a result of the global energy crisis that we are all going through now, today natural gas is considered the most essential energy resource."
Shahbazov said regarding oil, in principle, oil will decline as an energy fuel: "However, oil will always be in demand in the field of petrochemical production. The oil and gas sector will continue to exist. This field will transform and maybe take a completely different shape than it is now. Because currently, we see that the entire global energy architecture is dynamically changing during the global energy crisis. However, the role of the oil and gas sector, as I mentioned, will be maintained".
The minister emphasized that currently, it is a fact that "green energy" has solid international political and investment support: "Countries that have already solved their energy security are already at a more reliable level. They are able to carry out their energy transition more optimally. That is, they implement the transition to 'green energy' more optimally. From this point of view, Azerbaijan, as a traditional oil and gas producing country, takes very serious measures in this regard. Azerbaijan has already reached agreements on the construction of projects with foreign investment related to the production of wind and solar electricity with a capacity of 4,700 megawatts. In the next stage, we plan to implement projects of 6 gigawatts of energy."
In the end, Shahbazov said that there is a total of 26 gigawatts of solar and wind energy potential on land in Azerbaijan: "There is a large amount of electric power in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, which will be used in the future for both domestic demand and supply to our partners and neighbors."