Azernews.Az

The volume of gas injected into underground storage facilities has increased due to the suspension of Azerbaijani gas supply to the Turkish state pipeline company Botas' system following an explosion on a pipeline pumping the gas, a source at Azerbaijan's state energy company, SOCAR, told Trend news agency.

Turkey has a contract for supply of 6.6 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas annually from the offshore Shah Deniz field via South Caucasus Pipeline, which is a section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) pipeline crossing Azerbaijan and Georgia.

The explosion hit the section of the BTE gas pipeline in the Turkish province of Kars, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on Thursday. Cause of the explosion has not yet been established.

The SOCAR source said that the increase of gas injection into underground storages in Azerbaijan started late on Wednesday.

Currently, the total volume of gas injection exceeds 14 million cubic meters per day. The volume of gas injection from the Shah Deniz field into underground storage facilities increased by 4 million cubic meters per day in the past few days.

The source said all the available equipment in two underground storage facilities in Azerbaijan -- Garadagh and Kalmaz -- has been used to ensure pumping of more gas from the Shah Deniz field.