Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Production of gas in Azerbaijan excluding associated gas totaled 17.24 billion cubic meters in 2012 or 5.4 percent more than in 2011, the State Statistics Committee said Thursday.

The South Caucasus Pipeline, a section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) pipeline, transported 4 billion cubic meters of gas in 2012 compared to 4.5 billion in 2011.

About 1.3 million tons of gasoline were produced in Azerbaijan in 2012, which is 0.1 percent over the same period of last year.

Azerbaijan produced almost 4.8 million tons of main petroleum products in 2012.

Electricity production in 2012 was 6.8 percent more than in 2011.

However, oil production was nearly 43 million tons in Azerbaijan in 2012, 5.3 percent less than in 2011.

The Azerbaijani government says the decline in oil production is unrelated with a reduction of natural resources.

"Decline in the oil production sector is not linked to a reduction of natural resources," State Statistics Committee chairman Arif Veliyev has said. "Following the events at the BP platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the government of Azerbaijan recommended that the company carefully consider security issues during work on the country's fields, which affected production figures."

As for Azerbaijan's oil production in 2013, OPEC's January oil market report as well as the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) monthly report forecasted a decrease by 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2013.

Most of oil production last year accounted for Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of oil and gas fields and Shah Deniz gas condensate field, which are being developed in cooperation with foreign partners.

According to the State Statistics Committee, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline transported 32.9 million tons of oil in 2012 compared to 34.5 million tons in 2011.