Azerbaijan says 'God-given' oil and gas will help it go green

Azerbaijan's rich history of oil and gas production, economic impact, and transition to renewable energy highlighted before COP29.

Flames soar into the air from a sandstone outcrop on a hillside of the Absheron peninsula near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, as it prepares to host the COP29 climate conference.

The "burning mountain" — Yanardag in Azerbaijani — is fed by underground gas rising to the surface and ignited upon contact with oxygen.

The abundance of naturally occurring fires from the energy-rich nation's huge gas deposits has earned it the nickname "The Land of Fire".

Azerbaijan's vast oil and gas resources "have shaped the history, culture, politics, and the economy" of the Caspian nation, said energy expert Kamalya Mustafayeva.

Azerbaijan's oil deposits — 7 billion barrels of proven reserves — were discovered in the mid-19th century, making what was then part of the Russian Empire one of the first places in the world to start commercial oil production.

"The world's first industrial onshore oil well was drilled in Azerbaijan, and also the first offshore one," Ashraf Shikhaliyev, the director of energy ministry's international cooperation department, told AFP.

Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Azerbaijan has produced 1.05 billion tonnes of oil and is set to increase its natural gas production from 37 billion cubic metres (bcm) this year to 49 bcm over the next decade, according to official figures.