Azeri state energy form SOCAR wants to participate in tenders to buy stakes in Greek state company DEPA and in the Turkish gas distribution network, a SOCAR official said on Tuesday.
"We are considering our participation in a tender on DEPA's privatisation ... We are talking about purchasing the state's stake in this company," Vagif Aliyev, the head of SOCAR's investment department, told reporters on the sidelines of the Caspian Oil and Gas exhibition.
He did not provide details of SOCAR's possible participation in the tender.
SOCAR signed a deal in April to supply gas directly to DEPA, bypassing Turkish intermediaries.
Azerbaijan -- a potential major supplier of gas for the European-backed Nabucco pipeline project -- has made it a policy to diversify sales to avoid dependence on any one intermediary such as Turkey or Russia.
The volume was not specified, but Azerbaijan said in February it planned to sell 0.7 billion cubic metres directly to Greece, which had been buying the same volume from Turkey since the end of 2008 as part of a re-export scheme.
Aliyev said SOCAR was also interested in purchasing a stake in the Turkish gas distribution company, Ikdash.
"We are preparing for participation in this tender," Aliyev said.
Azerbaijan's gas output rose by 11.2 percent in 2010 from 2009 to 26.2 bcm. The country plans to produce 28.0 bcm of gas this year.
It sells gas to the domestic market, neighbouring Georgia and Turkey via the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline, as well as Russia.