Turkey and Azerbaijan have signed a historic agreement for the shipment of gas from the huge Shah Deniz 2 field in the Caspian Sea to Turkey, the Balkans and central Europe.

After splitting from the Soviet Union to chart its own path, Azerbaijan’s journey to present day energy pivot is sprinkled with moments of extreme humanitarian suffering, war, loss of territory, diplomatic uncertainty, and massive advancements in the energy sector.

The Nord Stream pipeline, a $10 billion venture that opened last month, will allow Russia to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas directly to Germany, bypassing the traditional transit countries in Eastern and Central Europe.

Earlier this month, two events occurred which are likely to significantly boost Europe’s hopes for diversifying its gas supply and help realize Caspian gas exporting countries’ aspirations for reaching global gas markets. 

The recent discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field off the coast of Israel, though not a game changer like shale in terms of global gas supplies, promises to have major implications for the country's energy security and even the energy balance of the region at large, while setting off competition over other finds in the Mediterranean basin.

Following years of conflict, international isolation and slow growth, the Balkan countries are on an economic revival track, with GDP growth hovering around 5 percent. Sure, the numbers are more impressive in China, India, Brazil and Turkey, but when compared to the rest of Europe, the Balkan economies are doing great. That is the good news.

The election of the relatively pro-Russian Victor Yanukovich as President of Ukraine in February 2010 was supposed to herald a new era of energy stability in a country wracked by natural gas cutoffs, disputes among energy-rich oligarchs and perennial political turmoil, but recent events show that energy security in Central Asia and a stable supply of gas to Europe remains far from certain.&nbsp

Earlier this month, the world's largest pipe-laying vessel, the Solitaire, began work on the Gulf of Finland section of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline.