Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

In January-November of 2018, 20.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas was transported via gas pipelines in Azerbaijan that is an increase of 5.3 percent compared to the same period of 2017, AZERTAC reports citing State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan.

As many as 35.7 percent of gas (7.5 billion cubic meters) transported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (South Caucasus Pipeline - SCP) pipeline during reporting period, that is 12.6 percent more than the same period in last year.

Totally, 35.5 million tons of crude oil and 27.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas were produced in Azerbaijan in January-November of current year. Marketable natural gas made 17.4 billion cubic meters from this volume, which is 4.9 percent more than the same period last year.

The total value of production in the mining industry in the first 11 months increased by 0.2 percent compared to January-November of the previous year, amounting to 32.3 billion manats ($19.01 billion).

Azerbaijan exported 6.45 trillion cubic meters of gas worth $ 1.26 trillion. Compared to the same period last year, this figure was $ 100 million (8.66 percent) more, while in terms of volume, amount of gas was less by 443.6 million cubic meters (6,43 percent).

It should be also noted that, to date, 750 million cubic meters of Azerbaijani natural gas has been transported to Turkey by the TANAP pipeline. By the end of the year this volume will be about 1 billion cubic meters. TANAP will transport 2 billion cubic meters in 2019, 4 billion cubic meters in 2020 and 6 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Turkey in 2021.

TANAP, together with Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which provides for the transportation of gas from the Azerbaijani field Shah Deniz to Europe.

Shah Deniz is a giant gas condensate field, reserves of which are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas and 240 million tonnes of condensates. 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.

The main objective of the project is delivery of Caspian gas supplies to European markets via SGC that will help to increase Europe's energy security. Europe's energy policy is based on diversification of the energy supplies to overcome energy dependence on one source, as Russian gas meets the energy needs of most European countries at present.

The discovery of the giant Shah Deniz field and the successful implementation of the Shahdeniz gas project, Azerbaijan is a country that exports a large amount of natural gas to the world.

97 billion cubic meters of gas and 24 million tons of condensate have been produced from Shah Deniz, since the start of production.

The Shahdeniz gas field is still the biggest discovery of BP after the Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska. SOFAZ (Azerbaijani Oil Fund) has so far earned $ 2.5 billion from development of Shah Deniz.

Shah Deniz Consortium has spent $ 1.558 billion on the development project of the Shah Deniz gas condensate field located in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.

The agreement on the exploration, development and shared production of promising areas of Shah Deniz was signed on June 4, 1996. The agreement on the division of production was ratified on October 17, 1996.

The project participants are BP (operator - 28.8 percent), AzSD (10 percent), SGC Upstream (6.7 percent), Petronas (15.5 percent), LUKOIL (10 percent), NİKO (10 percent) and TPAO (19 percent).

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