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Russian Gazprom to negotiate its gas supplies to Azerbaijan

31 May 2016 17:01 (UTC+04:00)
Russian Gazprom to negotiate its gas supplies to Azerbaijan

By Fatma Babayeva

Volumes of Azerbaijan’s gas purchases from Russia will be discussed during the next meeting of Gazprom and SOCAR.

Russia’s gas giant Gazprom will hold talks with Azerbaijan on the possible Russian gas supplies in June, said Alexander Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the company during the press conference, reported TASS.

Medvedyev noted that Azerbaijan takes an interest and the next meeting will be held to determine the demand of Azerbaijan perhaps during the upcoming Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg.

Recently, Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR made a proposal for the purchase of additional 3-5 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Gazprom, which will almost double the volume of gas that Azerbaijan buys from Russia.

However, whether this deal is of economic or political nature is yet a question. Some experts view the move as Azerbaijan's intention to test how its two gas storage facilities - Kalmaz and Garadagh function.

The reason making the deal questionable is that it is practically impossible for Azerbaijan to test how its gas storage facilities function in new volumes as the country does not have such free volume of natural gas.

In the meantime, Aleksey Miller, head of Gazprom earlier related Azerbaijan's gas purchases from Russia with the country's economy growth and increasing domestic demand.

However, some experts believe this deal is a political rather than an economic step which is intended to bring Russia and Azerbaijan politically closer.

Gazprom supplies 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to Azerbaijan since September 2015 in accordance with the five-year contract which offers possibility of extension.

The average daily volume of gas deliveries from Russia amount to around 6 million cubic meters.

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Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva

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