The signing of the memorandum of understanding between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and Germany's RWE Dea had been anticipated. 
The chairman of the Centre for Economic and Social Development Vugar Bayramov said in his interview to The Echo that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during the visit of the Azeri President Ilham Aliyev to Germany that the German companies would take part in the development of the energy resources of the Caspian Basin. Besides, Mr Bayramov says, though Germany will not be buying gas via Nabucco, the German Chancellor expressed her support for the Nabucco Project. 
'Germany remains the leading country in EU and it is therefore very important for this country to upkeep the sufficient energy security of Europe,' the expert commented. 
At the same time, Mr Bayramov says, the current situation is favourable for the implementation of the Nabucco Project. On the one hand, the Nakhchivan field will be developed by the company that represents the country that has voiced its support for the project. On the other hand, the start-up of the Nakhchivan field's development coincides with the beginning of Shahdeniz Stage II operations. So, there should be no complications with the fulfilment of Azerbaijan's assumed obligation to provide 9 bn m3 of natural gas for the future's gas pipeline to run to Europe. 
Also, it is important to remember that the allocation of EUR 200 mn by EU towards the costs of carrying the Nabucco Project into life coincided with the signing of the memorandum and this shows clearly that the activity ebb in the supplier countries and in the producer countries remains on the increase, in the opinion of Mr Bayramov, who added that it is important to take into account the words of the Austrian co-chairman of Nabucco about the completion of the project run-up by the end of this year. To Mr Bayramov, this is another proof that Nabucco is very much on the agenda of EU yet. 
SOCAR and Germany's RWE Dea signed yesterday the memorandum of understanding about the accommodation of the main commercial conditions and principles of the production sharing agreement about the exploration and development of the perspective offshore structure of Nakhchivan in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea (APA-Economics). The president of SOCAR Rovnag Abdullayev spoke at the signing ceremony to underscore his company's interest in co-operating with such a major European energy company as RWE Dea happens to be. 
The president of RWE Dea Juergen Grossmann said in his turn that the Nakhchivan Project was one of the elements of the current co-operation and could become a component of Nabucco eventually. 
Incidentally, the deposits of the Nakhchivan are estimated at 300 bn m3 of natural gas and 38 mn tonnes of condensate. 
It should be noted also that Gazprom doubled the daily purchase of gas from Azerbaijan as of 5 March and said that it remains prepared to buy up all that gas that Azerbaijan can ever be ready to sell to it. 
'Our co-operation with Azerbaijan is gathering momentum. The daily supplies of gas from this country were doubled to 3 mn m3 from 5 March onwards,' commented the leader of the Russian gas holding Alexey Miller. 
Meantime, Mr Bayramov says, it is very impressive that Azerbaijan has doubled the exports of natural gas to Russia but in the language of numbers this means that Azerbaijan has stepped up the exports to Russia from 0.5 bn m3 to 1 bn m3 and this is but a tiny portion (3%) of all gas produced in the country currently. 
'Though the export of natural gas to Russia is widely regarded as Russia's attempt at putting a lid on the Nabucco Project, in reality Azerbaijan is actually putting pressure on the West in this way. Specifically, Azerbaijan has demonstrated very clearly that it does have alternatives when it comes to exporting its gas. At any rate, Nabucco will only be there in 2015 but Azerbaijan cannot reign in production of gas until then, can it? This is why the "blue fuel" is exported to Russia, Iran and other countries,' Mr Bayramov told The Echo.