Gazprom to Purchase Additional Natural Gas from Azerbaijan

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was expected to address economic and trade cooperation, mutual activity in the Caspian Sea, military cooperation, and Tuesday’s deadly clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan in talks during a two-day visit to Baku set to begin Thursday, reports Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

The Russian president was expected to sign a border delimitation deal with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, during the visit, the Azeri-Press Agency, or APA, reported Thursday.

The two presidents will discuss mutual activity on the oil- and gas-rich inland Caspian Sea, which has been a source of long-running disagreements between the five littoral states – Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan – since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian Presidential Aide Sergei Prikhodko said, according to APA.

Medvedev is accompanied by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and the heads of numerous Russian regions, including Dagestan and Ingushetia, as well as Russian business representatives.

Meanwhile, Russia’s largest energy company Gazprom and Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company, SOCAR, were expected to sign an accord to increase supplies of Azerbaijani gas to Russia in 2011-2012 during the Russian president’s visit to Baku on Thursday.

Gazprom CEO Miller said in mid-June that Gazprom is prepared to “buy as much gas as Azerbaijan is ready to deliver.”

“As part of the [Russian president’s] visit, an additional agreement to the contract on increasing natural gas supplies in 2011-2012 will be signed,” Prikhodko said Wednesday, RIA Novosti reported.