Energy
SOCAR, TotalEnergies and ADNOC's XRG Line Up Absheron Gas for 2029 Exports
August 26, 2026
4
Min
Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR has signed a long-term agreement with TotalEnergies, XRG — ADNOC's international investment platform — and Turkish operator BOTAŞ to market gas from the offshore Absheron field, with exports set to begin in 2029 via the Southern Gas Corridor, according to an outlook published by Eurasia Review. A final investment decision on the field's next phase is expected by the end of 2026.
Filling the post-Shah Deniz gap
The deal matters because Azerbaijan's flagship Shah Deniz field has plateaued. Production peaked at 27.8 billion cubic metres per year across 2024–2025 and is not expected to exceed that level. With European demand for non-Russian pipeline gas still firm, Absheron's second phase is the clearest route to incremental volumes.
The export machine it would feed keeps widening. Over the past year and the first four months of 2026, Azerbaijan shipped 16.7 bcm to Europe, 12.8 bcm to Turkey, 3.3 bcm to Georgia and 800 million cubic metres to Syria, per Eurasianet. Germany and Austria joined the buyer list at the start of 2026, taking the count of recipient countries to sixteen.
Q1 momentum
Gas exports rose 6.9% year-on-year to 6.5 bcm in the first quarter of 2026, while Report.az puts SOCAR's Q1 oil exports above 3.5 million tons. The constraint is no longer demand but upstream capacity and midstream expansion — the Southern Gas Corridor's compression upgrades will determine how much Absheron gas actually reaches European hubs.
The investor angle
For TotalEnergies and XRG, the agreement locks in offtake economics before the FID, de-risking a capital commitment in a basin where infrastructure access — not geology — is the binding constraint. For Ankara, BOTAŞ's seat at the table reinforces Turkey's role as the corridor's indispensable middleman. And for Baku, a 2029 start date gives the Southern Gas Corridor a credible growth story into the 2030s just as European buyers begin signing longer contracts again.
