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Baku hosts international conference on utilization of associated gas

17 June 2011 09:55 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev â€“ APA-Economics. An international conference on â€œAzerbaijan’s experience in reducing flaring and utilization of associated gasâ€ was held in Azerbaijan organized by State Oil Company and World Bank.

According to APA-Economics, SOCAR vice-president on Ecology Rafiga Huseynzade has read the SOCAR President Rovnag Abdulayeyvâ€™s congratulation letter.

He noted in his letter that, ecological issues during the quickly increase of industrial production were one of the priority issues and SOCAR had been in cooperation with World Bank within the Global Gas Flaring Reduction since 2008.

Head of WBâ€™s office in Baku Joseph Owen noted that, near 30 states and transnational companies have joined the GGFR, as well Azerbaijan was one of the most active countries. According to him, the government participated in this process actively and if it takes stimulating measures, reducing process of flaring and utilization of associated gas is observed more useful.

Deputy Chief Ecological Department of SOCAR Aflatun Hasanov spoke about the works done and to be done in direction of reduction of pollution of atmosphere from associated gas: â€œAppropriate working plans on waste management by SOCAR, reduce associated gas thrown to atmosphere, decrease its impact on climate change have been prepared and are realized. Consequently, if waste of associated gas made 0.5 bn in 2007, this indicator was dropped to 0.029 bn cubic meters in 2010. The common purpose is to reduce these wastes to possible minimum until 2015â€.

Note that, nearly 150 bn associated gas is fraled in the world each year, and it means loss at amount of $30-35 bn. Russia is the leader among wastes sphere (50 bn cubic meters of associated gas). Besides, great performances are observed in Nigeria, Iran, Libya, China, Venezuela and US.

Discussions on reducing of flaring and utilization of associated gas, reduction of emission of carbon gas to atmosphere have been held at the conference.