According to a Gazprom press release, the parties committed to "massive long-term cooperation" after an agreement was reached on 27 March to settle the terms of Azerbaijan's gas sales to Russia.
First deliveries are expected in January 2010 on delivered-at-frontier terms, according to the Memorandum of Understanding.
Pavel K. Baev, a senior researcher from the Oslo International Peace Research Institute, suggests that the project could make Nabucco irrelevant as Azerbaijan is seen as the most likely first gas supplier for Nabucco.
Behind the signed agreement lies a pipeline project, Baev said, which like Nabucco could also be named after an opera, such as 'Prince Igor' by Alexander Borodin. The pipeline would channel Russian gas together with supplies from Azerbaijan towards south-eastern Europe, via the planned South Stream pipeline and under the Black Sea, from Novorossiysk to Varna in Bulgaria.
Agata Loskot-Strachota, an energy policy analyst at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw told EurActiv that sales of Azeri gas to or via Russia would reduce the volumes available for rival pipelines such as Nabucco and weaken the incentive to get involved with them.
She recalled that the 27 march memorandum is just a subsequent element in a process which began several months ago. But although Baku had seemed hesitant at first, the situation has now changed, she argued.
"The Azeri situation has significantly changed in the last nine months. The Russia–Georgia war increased Moscow's position in the South Caucasus and showed the relative weakness of the West. There have also been important developments in the policy of Turkey, Azerbaijan's strategic ally, in the region. The visible intensification of the relations between Ankara and Moscow, the proposal for increased cooperation of these two in the Caucasus, the change in Turkish-Armenian relations and rumours of the possibility of solving the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, led to a reshuffling of the geopolitical situation in the South Caucasus, diminishing the strength of the relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey and placing the pro-western Azerbaijan in a difficult situation," Loskot-Strachota explained.
"Azerbaijan is forcing both EU and Russia to issue more concrete and commercially attractive offers. This means that the time is running out for those European consumers or companies, who want to have Azeri gas shipped to the EU independently of Russia," the Polish researcher concluded.
Russian setback in Turkmenistan?
In the meantime, the Russian press regretted that a recent visit of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov to Moscow on March 25 had been inconclusive. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had hoped to sign an intergovernmental agreement on building a West-East pipeline across Turkmenistan, which would have advanced the project lobbied by Moscow to a new level.
Under the plan, the pipeline would link deposits in northeast Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea. However, the sides have not been able to sign the agreement, RIA Novosti wrote.
