Azerbaijan, Russia to develop gas fields in northern part of Caspian Sea
By Narmina Mammadova
Azerbaijan and Russia will develop gas fields in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, a source in the Centralized Analytical Laboratory of the High Tech Park LLC of Azerbaijan’s National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) told Trend.
The two countries will develop mothballed gas fields that Russia and Azerbaijan couldn’t use due to the lack of division of the Caspian Sea into sectors.
"In the middle of this year, at the level of state circles, an agreement was reached that Azerbaijan can build two platforms there," the source said. "The existence of such an agreement already says a lot and it will probably become a project for next year."
There are gas reserves in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, but there are no platforms, the source noted. Gas platforms of Azerbaijan are mainly located in the central and southern parts of the Caspian Sea, the source added.
"Probably, in the near future, certain steps will be taken in this direction. If a platform is built there and drilling work is carried out, certainly there will be a quality control laboratory," the source said.
Azerbaijan has a large number of oil and gas fields and promising structures in the Caspian Sea. One of them is the block of oil and gas fields “Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli” (ACG), proven oil reserves of which are estimated at 1.2 billion tons, while gas reserves-350 billion cubic meters.
Another large field is the Shah Deniz gas condensate field, reserves of which are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. Within the second stage of field development, the volume of gas production can be increased to 24 billion cubic meters per year, according to forecasts.
There are also such deposits as Absheron (350 billion cubic meters), Umid (200 billion cubic meters), and the promising structure of Babek (400 billion cubic meters).
Azerbaijani gas is currently exported directly by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan SOCAR to Iran and Georgia, and by the Shah-Deniz consortium via the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum gas pipeline to Georgia and Turkey.
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