With the Southern Gas Corridor soon ready to ship Azerbaijani gas to European markets, EU-Turkey tensions and the ongoing war between Armenia and Azerbaijan complicate matters. Sergio Matalucci reports.

There is consensus among experts about the future Biden administration's commitment to the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC).

The project was supported by the previous two administrations in an attempt to help diversify the EU's energy supply, bringing gas from Azerbaijan into Turkey and Europe.

This strategy is not expected to change.

"With a Biden presidency, the US will come back to the international climate action club. It will be difficult to see President Joe Biden promoting American LNG in Europe as Donald Trump did, as that would clearly be in conflict with his climate agenda," Simone Tagliapietra, research fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, told DW.

"But this doesn't mean a change with respect to the Southern Gas Corridor, quite the opposite."

The SGC has been the largest gas project in the world since 2017. The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the last leg of the SGC, will bring Azerbaijani gas from the Greek-Turkish border to Italy.

It will be ready in mid-November, said Luca Schieppati, managing director at TAP. Preparations for launching commercial activities are on schedule.

"The Southern Gas Corridor will bring natural gas to Europe from a new source and through a new route, thus reinforcing the Continent's security and diversification of supplies,"Schieppati told DW, adding that —depending on market conditions — TAP could double its capacity to 20 bcm (billion cubic meters) per year with minor modifications to the system.

According to Schieppati, gas from Azerbaijan is expected to make up around 30%, 20% and 12% of domestic gas demand in Bulgaria, Greece and Italy respectively.

The project will increase Greece's gas transit role to Southeastern Europe and make energy prices in Italy more competitive.

SGC and the Balkans

The pipeline is also promoting the gasification of the Western Balkans, currently dependent on locally-sourced coal.

"TAP facilitates the prospective gasification of Western Balkan countries lacking a commercial gas sector, like Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro, as well as of markets with extremely modest demand profiles of less than 0.5 bcm per year, which remain solely dependent on Russia, like Bosnia and Herzegovina," Mariana Liakopoulou, energy security research fellow with the NATO Association of Canada, told DW.