Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

Energy Minister Natig Aliyev stated that Azerbaijan is giving significant impetus to ensuring the energy stability in Europe.

Aliyev, addressing the 24th Caspian International Oil and Gas Conference in Baku on June 1, said that Azerbaijan has been successfully cooperating with foreign partners in the oil and gas sector and implementing various big projects.

“As a result of this cooperation, the development of such largest oil and gas fields in Azerbaijan, as ‘Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli’ and ‘Shah Deniz’ started,” the minister said.

He stressed that the country is implementing projects that have become vital for Europe. “That’s because the diversification of energy sources plays a major role in Europe’s security, and Azerbaijan is ready to play this role,” he added.

First Vice President of Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company SOCAR Khoshbakht Yusifzade, in turn, informed the participants that the work on the project of developing Stage 2 of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas condensate field has been completed by 93 percent.

He said that two wells are being drilled at the field, adding that work at another well is under completion.

Being one of the main components of the large-scale Southern Gas Corridor project, Shah Deniz 2 is expected to add a further 16 bcm per year of gas production to the approximately 9 bcm per year produced by Shah Deniz Stage 1.

"The South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion Project has been completed by 85 percent. The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) has been constructed by 72.4 percent,” Yusifzade stated.

The section of the pipeline stretching to the city of Eskisehir will be commissioned in the middle of 2018, according to the vice president.

“TANAP’s section stretching to the border with Greece is planned to be commissioned in 2019," he added.

Azerbaijan has become the initiator of the Southern Gas Corridor project, designed to bring Caspian gas to energy-hungry Europe. In 2018, the gas will reach Turkey and in early 2020 customers in Greece, Bulgaria and Italy will start receiving gas from Shah Deniz.

BP Vice President for the Southern Gas Corridor Joe Murphy, while speaking at the event, stressed that as many as $66 billion were invested by BP and partners in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas projects.

Most of the strategic projects had been implemented in Azerbaijan under BP-Azerbaijan cooperation, which spans more than 20 years and is to be continued with the ongoing Shah Deniz 2, ACG and Southern Gas Corridor projects. And one must not forget the success of BTC, which allow to carry Azerbaijani oil to the world.

Statoil Company’s executive vice-president Lars Christian Bacher, in his turn, pointed out that over the last two decades, his company has invested more than $6.5 billion in Azerbaijan, making it the second largest investor in the country.

He noted that since the entry of Statoil in Azerbaijan in 1992, this country has been a key arena for the company's international goals.

"Through a turbulent and volatile time in global affairs, Azerbaijan has proved to be a place with a stable business environment, which makes it attractive for foreign investments," Bacher added.

Total's Vice-President of Europe and Caspian Region Bernard Clement, for his part, informed about the French company’s intention to create a joint venture with Azerbaijan's SOCAR on the Absheron field development project.

“Total and SOCAR will have 50 percent share in this company each," he said.

Clement noted that the company will become operational in 2017 and pointed out that Absheron has the potential to produce three or four times more than it will produce in the first phase of development.

"We have agreed with SOCAR on two key objectives: fast development of the field in order to bring gas as fast as we can; and to use the existing facilities as much as we can in order to reduce the cost," he added.

SOCAR and Total signed a framework agreement in late 2016 on the main contractual and commercial principles regulating the program for the first phase of development of the Absheron field.

SOCAR geologists assume that the reserves of the Absheron field amounts to 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million tons of condensate.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz