Azerbaijan: a strategic actor in the regional energy chessboard

The presence in its territory of huge oil and gas reserves and its geographic-territorial location as a kind of “energy bridge” between Caspian energy and Turks and European markets represent relevant geopolitical factors which have enhanced the strategic relevance of Azerbaijan in the regional and international scenario. Thanks to these conditions, several energy projects (pipelines, LNG terminals) have been proposed with the aim to cross Azeri republic or to use Azeri oil and gas reserves: the most famous is Nabucco and the Southern Corridor but there are others like AGRI, TANAP, ITGI, TAP which stress the rising importance of this Caucasian republic. The aim of this paper is to evaluate if Azerbaijan could play both roles as energy supplier and energy hub in the East-West corridor in the next years and which geopolitical, strategic and economic gains could obtain considering following issues: Azerbaijan is a strategic key partner for the EU in order to satisfy its growing demand of energy and to achieve its energy security strategy focus on the diversification of export route and on the reduction of export dependency from Russia; Azerbaijan could be a geopolitical player in the Russian energy strategy aimed to preserve the EU dependency from Russian gas hindering the realization of the Southern Corridor; Azerbaijan could become a strategic energy partner for Turkey, not only following the implementation of the planned TANAP pipeline but because most of planned energy routes projects involving Azerbaijan must necessarily cross Turkish territory; Azerbaijan is the obliged route for Central Asian states (mainly Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) which aimed to channel their oil and gas exports towards Western and European markets. We can observe that the precondition for a full implementation of the Southern Corridor is the Turkmen-Azeri appeasementTo develop my research, I use a comparative method through which I analyse how Azeri strategic key drivers (strategic geographic position, huge oil and gas reserves, Azerbaijan's diversification strategy of energy exports) have attracted interests of geopolitical actors in order to achieve their strategic energy goals.The convergence of strategic interests between Azerbaijan and EU focused on the energy diversification concept has enhanced the Caucasian republic in the role of key partner for EU, in order to achieve its energy security through the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC). The future implementation of the Trans Anatolia Gas Pipeline (TANAP) will represent a concrete and feasible opportunity for Azerbaijan to play both role of transit and supplier country within the SGC also benefiting of several economic, political and strategic gains. However, the achievement of this result will hinder Russian geopolitical plans in the region (to set back EU energy diversification projects and to obtain additional volumes of gas to fuel South Stream project). The concrete achievement of the Azeri geopolitical ambition to become a strategic energy supplier and transit country depends on the solution of regional hindrances, such as the obliged Georgian export route, the unsolved Caspian legal status, relations with Turkmenistan to realize the Trans Caspian energy corridor..