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Azerbaijan explores Shah Deniz gas export options

23 December 2008 16:32 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ramil Memmedli â€“ APA. By the end of December, two of three wells on Central Azeri will come back on stream, said Rovnag Abdullayev, President of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR).
Accordign to him, the full operation of the platform, which was shut down due to a gas leak, will be achieved in late January, 2009.
On September 17, two of its five offshore platforms on the ACG fields were shut down following a gas leak. West Azeri reopened in October but Central Azeri remains closed.
Rovnag Abdullayev also added that negotiations with several countries on the exportation of gas from Phase 2 of Shah Deniz are under way.
â€œWe are exploring several options. One option is to sell the gas to Russiaâ€™s Gazprom and the second is to sell to Turkey,â€ he added.
According to him, Azerbaijanâ€™s oil output is predicted to reach 50 million tons and gas output $7 billion cubic meters in 2009.
The Shah Deniz project is a gas and condensate development in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea with planned gas exports to foreign countries.
Shah Deniz participating interests are: BP (operator â€“ 25.5%), StatoilHydro (25.5%), SOCAR (10%), LUKOIL (10%), NICO (10%), Total (10%), and TPAO (9%).