Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 19 / Trend E. Ismayilov /
Around 44.6 billion cubic meters of gas have been extracted since the beginning of the Shah Deniz gas condensate field development in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, SOCAR First Vice President on Geology, Geophysics and Mining Khoshbakht Yusifzade's article, published in the Respublika newspaper, said today.
According to the article, around 11.7 million tons of gas condensate has been extracted since the beginning of the development.
Six wells were drilled within the first stage of the Shah Deniz field development. Their potential daily debit is 25-30 million cubic meters of gas and 7000-8000 tons of condensate, Yusufzade said.
According to the article, as a result of the implementation of the second stage of the field development, gas production volume will increase by 16 million cubic meters. The implementation of Shah Deniz second stage together with the appropriate pipeline infrastructure will cost $ 40 billion.
Shah Deniz reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The contract to develop the offshore Shah Deniz field was signed on June 4, 1996.
Participants to the agreement are: BP (operator) - 25.5 per cent, Statoil - 25.5 per cent, NICO - 10 per cent, Total - 10 per cent, Lukoil - 10 per cent, TPAO - nine per cent and SOCAR - 10 per cent.
The gas extracted at Shah Deniz field is exported via the South Caucasus Pipeline. In particular, around 24 billion cubic meters of gas have been supplied via it to Turkey since the commissioning of the gas pipeline and 3.4 billion cubic meters of gas to Georgia.
The length of the South Caucasus gas pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum) is more than 700 kilometres.