Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.8
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
The AGRI (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania interconnector) project may become one of the infrastructure projects that will allow Azerbaijan to transport its large reserves of gas on the markets, the head of SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) Rovnag Abdullayev told reporters Dec.8.
"All projects have a right to exist," he said. "Azerbaijan has large reserves of natural gas. And there should be an infrastructure in order to transport these reserves to the markets, the role of which can belong to AGRI in the future as well."
Also, Abdullayev said that first of all, work on projects under the Southern Gas Corridor, which has great potential for expansion, is currently underway.
He said that if the market demands it, each of the projects can be considered anew.
British engineering company Penspen presented to shareholders of AGRI (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romanian Interconnector) the final version of the feasibility study (FS) of the project. The final version of the feasibility study was reviewed by the Board of Directors, and then recommended to the General Meeting of Shareholders, which is scheduled for January-February 2015.
AGRI project envisages the transportation of Azerbaijani gas to the Black Sea coast of Georgia via the gas pipelines. Azerbaijani gas delivered to Georgia's Black Sea coast will be liquefied at a special terminal and following this, it will be delivered to a terminal at Romanian port of Constanta with tankers.
Further, it will be brought to the gaseous state and sent via the country's gas infrastructure for meeting the demands of Romania and other European countries.
The cost of the project will vary from 1.2 billion euros to 4.5 billion euros, according to the preliminary estimations. The project's cost will depend on the capacity of terminals that could be equal to 2-8 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
The participants of the AGRI project are the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Georgia's Oil and Gas Corporation, as well as MVM (Hungary) and Romgaz (Romania) companies. In February 2011, the parties established a joint venture for the implementation of the SC AGRI LNG Project Company SRL project.
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Emil Ismayilov is Trend Agency's staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @Emilsmail