Sunday the 27 th of September 2020, fighting flared up again in the South Caucasus between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The most recent war has displaced tens of thousands of citizens in primarily Nagorno-Karabakh and hundreds of soldiers have lost their lives. While the human costs are tremendous, Europe’s energy security could also be at risk. Energy-rich Azerbaijan is connected to global markets by a number of crucial pipelines – the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC), the Baku Supsa pipeline – and the South Caucasus gas pipeline (SCP). The pipelines pass through the narrow “Ganja Gap” (named after Azerbaijan’s second most populous city). The relative proximity of the infrastructure to the battlefield in Nagorno-Karabakh has led to speculations that it could become a target if fighting escalates beyond Nagorno-Karabakh. Although the Azeri oil exports are sizeable, 700,000 barrels per day, competitors could easily replace lost volumes, in what still is an […]