Azernews.Az

Russian giant Gazprom is seeking to buy natural gas from Azerbaijan, says president of the state oil company SOCAR that produces oil and gas from the country's vast energy fields.
Rovnag Abdullayev said preliminary talks on the issue were held with the head of Gazprom Alexei Miller during his visit to Baku on Monday. "We decided to continue discussions," Abdullayev told reporters on Tuesday.
The SOCAR boss said the number of countries seeking to buy gas from the resource-rich South Caucasus republic was rising. Turkey, Iran, Israel and a number of European states are interested in the purchases as well.
"We are intent on selling Azerbaijan's gas on lucrative terms," Abdullayev said.
Gazprom's press-service has confirmed that it plans to buy Azerbaijani gas for market prices. The issue was discussed during Miller's meeting with President Ilham Aliyev, the company said.
"We have common interests. We are interested in developing cooperation between Gazprom and Azerbaijan in the energy sector," Miller said.
Azerbaijan produces gas from its Shahdaniz field in the Caspian that launched production in 2006. The field holds estimated reserves of 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. The resources are used both to meet domestic demand and for exports. Shahdaniz output is predicted at 12-16 billion cubic meters in 2012 during Phase 2 of development. Azerbaijani officials say the figure could be increased further to 30 billion cubic meters.