Oil, gas, electricity exports disclosed
By Leman Mammadova
The State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan has revealed statistics on oil, gas and electricity exports.
The Committee’s data says that the country exported 19.6 million tons of oil worth $9.5 billion in January-July 2019.
Oil exports from Azerbaijan amounted to 16.6 million worth $8.6 billion in the same period of last year. Thus, during the reporting period of 2019, oil exports increased by 17.4 percent in quantitative terms, and by 9.9 percent in value terms.
As for gas, in January-July 2019, its exports reached 6.7 billion cubic meters worth $1.2 billion. In the same period of 2018, Azerbaijan exported 4.49 billion cubic meters of gas worth $749.7 million.
Thus, gas exports increased by 65.7 percent in quantitative terms, and by 68.4 percent in value terms for the reporting period of 2019.
At the same time, electricity exports exceeded 1.3 billion kWh worth $56.5 million in the first seven months of this year. In the same period of last year, Azerbaijan exported 1.2 billion kWh of electricity for $56.9 million. Thus, this is a 9.4 percent increase in quantitative terms, and 0.7 percent in value terms.
The total oil exports from Azerbaijan amounted to 29.5 million tons worth $15.7 billion, gas exports – 7.9 billion cubic meters worth $1.5 billion, and electricity exports - 1.4 billion for $65.6 million in 2018.
Azerbaijan exports electricity to Georgia, Turkey, Russia and Iran. Azerenergy is the main exporter of electric energy in the country. Azerbaijan, which has been exporting electricity to neighboring countries for a long time, has already begun exporting energy to European countries. Since early May 2019, Azerenergy has started supplying electricity to Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary through Georgia and Turkey.
Azerbaijan mainly carries out oil exports through Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, and gas exports via the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), namely the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum.
BTC, which is considered to be the main artery of energy export in the region, has played an important role in the extraction of the Caspian Sea's rich energy resources and bringing them to the world markets.
At present, the BTC pipeline mainly transports the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oil and Shah Deniz condensate from Azerbaijan. In addition, other crude oil and condensate volumes, including Turkmen, Russian and Kazakh oil are transported via the pipeline.
Currently, an average of 110,000 tons of oil and 94 million cubic meters of gas are extracted per day in Azerbaijan from offshore and onshore fields, including the Shah Deniz, ACG and Umid fields, which are jointly operated with foreign companies.
ACG is the largest oil and gas field in the Caspian Sea, covering more than 432 square kilometers. A contract for the development of ACG block of oil and gas fields was signed in 1994 for 30 years. Oil extraction from the field began in November 1997.
Proven oil reserves of ACG block of oil and gas fields are estimated at 1.2 billion tons, while gas reserves make 350 billion cubic meters.
On September 14, 2017, a modified and redeveloped agreement was signed on joint development and shared distribution of production from the Azeri, Chirag fields and the deepwater part of the Gunashli field (ACG). The new agreement provides for the development of the field until 2050.
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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888
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