Azernews.Az

BAKU – 41 representatives from 17 countries joined an international gas conference in Baku on Friday.

Addressing the Caspian Energy Dialogue 2011 conference, president of the Azerbaijani state energy firm Socar, Rovnag Abdullayev, said Azerbaijan’s gas production surged more than five-fold in 2004-2010 to 26 billion cubic meters per year.

Abdullayev noted that the first stage of developing the country’s giant Shahdaniz field in the Caspian Sea began in 2006, and daily flow-rate is currently 23 million cubic meters of gas and 5,000 tons of condensate.

"Preparations are now underway to launch Phase 2 of the Shahdaniz project. At least 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year will be produced during this stage. First gas from Shahdaniz 2 is expected in 2017."

Abdullayev also said Socar is developing on its own the Umid field, which has estimated reserves of 200 billion cubic meters of gas and up to 40 million tons of condensate.

According to Abdullayev, Azerbaijan has about 40 prospective gas structures, including Absheron, Nakhchivan and Babek.

Production will be brought to 30bn cubic meters per year in 2015, he said.

Abdullayev said the South Caucasus republic’s proven recoverable hydrocarbon reserves amount to 4.2bn tons, but potential reserves are as much as 10bn tons.

Speakers at the conference included representatives of the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy (ADA) and Socar, the event organizers, as well as Greece’s DEPA company, Ukrainian, Georgian and Romanian gas firms. Representatives of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline project, heads of research centers and experts dealing with the Caspian region addressed the event as well.