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🇮🇹🇦🇿 Azerbaijan supplies 16% of Italy's gas. SOCAR just bought 4,500 Italian fuel stations. This is what energy security looks like when Hormuz closes. While the world watches the Strait Italy just rewired its energy architecture northward. The Meloni-Aliyev meeting, what was agreed? First Italian PM visit to Azerbaijan in 13 years. Framed explicitly as a "reliable partnerships" discussion during Middle East instability. → Azerbaijan exported 25 bcm of gas in 2025 7.5 bcm to Italy → Italy: top EU buyer of Azerbaijani gas → TAP cumulative deliveries: 47.5 bcm since startup → TAP covers ~16% of Italy's total gas demand → Both leaders: agreed to push volumes higher via TAP expansion Aliyev: TAP expansion "has already started but must continue" Meloni: Azerbaijani gas has been "decisive for Italy's energy security" and Hormuz makes it more critical still. The infrastructure behind the words The Southern Gas Corridor: Caspian → Azerbaijan → Georgia → Turkey → Greece → Albania → Puglia. TAP annual flows: 9.5 bcm and rising. Recent compressor upgrades: +1.2 bcm/year added capacity. Technical ceiling with full expansion: toward 20 bcm/year. Every bcm that comes through TAP is one bcm that doesn't need to come through Hormuz. The SOCAR downstream move This is where it gets structural. SOCAR Azerbaijan's state oil company just acquired 99.82% of Italiana Petroli (IP): → 10 mt/year refining capacity across 2 Italian refineries → 4,500 service stations across Italy → Aviation fuel, bitumen, logistics assets included → EC approved: February 2026 Gas flows in via TAP. Oil and products flow out via IP's refineries and retail network. SOCAR now has a vertically integrated position inside the EU's 3rd largest economy. Bilateral trade: €10.2 billion in 2025 Italy is Azerbaijan's largest commercial partner. Azerbaijan invested €2.5 billion in Italy. That's an energy alliance formalised by war. The EU wants Russian gas gone. Gulf supply is physically disrupted. The Caspian route via Azerbaijan is the one clean corridor left that avoids both. The Italy-Azerbaijan-SOCAR triangle is the EU's northbound hedge: Caspian gas in via TAP. Azerbaijani oil out via Italian refineries and 4,500 fuel stations. The map of European energy security is being redrawn not in Brussels, but in Baku.