Azernews.Az

MOSCOW – Russian gas giant Gazprom will more than double imports of natural gas from Azerbaijan to 2 billion cubic meters in 2011, the company said.

An agreement on boosting purchases of fuel was reached last Friday during talks between the president of the Azerbaijani state energy firm SOCAR Rovnag Abdullayev and Gazprom’s Chief Executive Alexei Miller.

SOCAR supplied almost 800 million cubic meters of gas to Russia in 2010.

The parties further summarized their cooperation in 2010. They noted that gas supplies from Azerbaijan to Russia are the most reliable and safest route for delivering Azerbaijani gas, Gazprom said.

The SOCAR head and Gazprom’s CEO agreed to develop fruitful cooperation and further increase gas supplies in 2012. It was agreed that the Azerbaijani gas will be purchased based on a price formula linked to the oil basket and without any restrictions on the volume of long-term supplies.

Miller and Abdullayev noted that the development of cooperation between Gazprom and SOCAR is a strategically important area of cooperation between the two countries.

"Gas cooperation between Azerbaijan and Russia is the most commercially viable option for both partners. Gazprom has no obstacles in order to provide the technical capacity to import Azerbaijani gas in an even larger volume for any period of time agreed with its partners in Baku. The results of negotiations have confirmed this, and we agreed to increase purchases in 2012," Miller said.

The medium-term contract with a possibility of extension for the sale of Azerbaijani gas to Russia was signed between SOCAR and Gazprom in Baku in October 2009. According to the addendum to the contract signed in September 2010 in Baku, Gazprom will receive 2bn cubic meters in 2011 and over 2bn cubic meters in 2012.