Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Proven gas reserves of the giant Shah Deniz gas condensate field located in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea may increase to 1.5 trillion cubic meters, a senior official of the Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR has said.

"Whereas currently, the proven reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters, according to initial estimates, this figure could be increased to 1.5 trillion cubic meters," SOCAR's First Vice President Khoshbakht Yusifzade said at an event dedicated to the 90th anniversary of national leader Heydar Aliyev on Tuesday.

Yusifzade said the discovery of this large deposit is of great importance for the development of Azerbaijan's gas potential.

Earlier, BP published the gas and gas condensate figures for the first quarter of 2013, saying that 2.42 billion cubic meters of gas and 0.63 million tons of condensate (5 million barrels) was produced from the Shah Deniz field in this period.

Average daily volume of gas production on the field in Q1 amounted to approximately 27 million cubic meters, while the average daily condensate production stood at 55.3 million barrels, BP said in a report.

From the end of 2006 when production started at Shah Deniz till the end of the first quarter of 2013, 40 billion cubic meters of gas and 10.7 million tons (85 million barrels) of condensate have been delivered to world markets, the report says.

The contract to develop the Shah Deniz field was signed in 1996. Shareholders of the project are BP and Statoil with 25.5 percent each, NICO, Total, Lukoil and SOCAR with 10 percent each, and TPAO with 9 percent.