Azerbaijan may increase gas export by 2035
By Nigar Abbasova
Energy-rich Azerbaijan, which plays a big role in ensuring Europe’s energy security, announced about possible increase in its gas export.
Gulmira Rzayeva, a senior researcher of the Center for Strategic Studies under the President of Azerbaijan, said that the country will be able to export additional volume of 15 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year by 2035 thanks to the development of new potential gas reserves in the country.
She made the remarks while addressing a conference titled ‘Investments in infrastructure, power generation and renewable energy sources’ in Baku on November 16.
She underlined that the country possesses tremendous potential to increase its gas production, while gas reserves of the country are currently estimated at the level of 2.6 trillion cubic meters (tcm).
Rzayeva said that along with the largest gas-condensate Shah Deniz field, which is expected to provide some 25 bcm of gas per year after implementation of the second stage of development, Azerbaijan possesses a number of other fields, where production have not been launched yet. She added that the fields contain “free” and non-contracted volumes of gas.
The volume of gas production at Absheron field, which is expected to provide first volumes of gas in 2019, will amount to nearly 5 bcm of production per year in 2021-2022. Umid –Babek fields may add some 5-7 bcm per year starting from 2026-2027.
Reserves of Absheron are estimated at some 350 bcm of gas and 45 million tons of condensate. Umid field reserves are estimated at more than 200 bcm of gas and 40 million tons of condensate, while Babek field reserves may amount to 400 bcm of gas and 80 tons of condensate, according to preliminary estimates.
Rzayeva went on saying that an additional volume of 4-5 bcm will be extracted starting from 2027-2018, due to the production of associated and deep occurrence gas in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of field. Thus, the country will get additional volume of some 15 bcm of gas for export by 2020-2035.
Azerbaijan has so far extracted some 76 bcm of gas and 19 million tons of condensate from its Shah Deniz field, which is located on the deep water shelf of the Caspian Sea. Daily production at the field, which is considered to be one of the world’s largest gas-condensate fields, currently stands at 28-29 million cm of gas and nearly 6,000 tons of condensate.
The country produced some 8.02 bcm of gas at the field in January-September 2016 (10 percent higher than in the same period of 2015), with nearly 2.64 bcm being used for the provision of domestic needs.
The country exported approximately 4 bcm of natural gas in the first half of 2016, which is 7.8 percent lesser than the figure recorded in the same period of 2015. The total worth of exported gas totaled $706.333 million facing a decrease of 30.6 percent.
Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company SOCAR exported some 715.9 mcm of gas to Georgia in January-September 2016, while the volume exported in 2015 stood at 1.36 mcm of gas. Moreover, the company delivered some 167.3 mcm of gas within the implementation of swap operations with Iran. The Islamic Republic takes some 15 percent of the total volume of received gas, while the rest volume is being delivered to Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.
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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova
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