SOCAR has an eye to the future, taking an interest in the development of hydrogen, company’s deputy vice president Vitaliy Baylarbayov told ICIS in an exclusive interview, Report informs.
“Yes, we do and we are already working on the development of the relevant strategy there. We have established a unit dealing with hydrogen production and usage options, and are actively studying the options to transport hydrogen to the markets via the Southern Gas Corridor or other available pipeline systems. We are already working on hydrogen refuelling on some of our petrol stations in Switzerland and plan to have them operational in 2022,” he added.
He said SOCAR was taking decarbonisation efforts seriously and added that together with BP, it, except for the emergencies, stopped flaring gas on all facilities. It had also introduced a zero discharge policy on all offshore operations.
However, he said that while SOCAR was mindful of the necessity to a green transition, he insisted the upcoming period would be more likely described as a green evolution rather than revolution because gas will continue to remain an important fuel.
“While many US and European policy makers are acting as if an energy transition away from fossil fuels has already taken place, demand trends and prices say something else.” Baylarbayov said.
