Azerbaijan, Baku, 11 January /corr. Trend A.Badalova / Norwegian StatoilHydro refuted the information in the press that the Company is holding concrete talks with Gazprom to sell the gas being produced from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field to Russian gas monopolist.
Gazprom has been willing to purchase gas from Shah Deniz since Stage 2 of the project development, the Executive Vice President of StatoilHydro, Peter Mellbue, reported to the US agency, Bloomberg reports. "We held discussions with Gazprom and they showed certain interest," Bloomberg reported.
The StatoilHydro Manager for Public Affairs, Kjersti T. Morstol reported to Trend by telephone on 11 January that the information by Bloomberg regarding talks between StatoilHydro and Gazprom on Russian company's purchase of the Azerbaijani gas does not correspond to the situation.
"There are not concrete talks," Morstol said.
StatoilHydro is the commercial operator on purchase of the gas from Shah Deniz field. The technical operator of the project is BP.
"We have a business relationship to Gazprom that is well known and we have frequent contact with representatives of the company. In this connection the issue of Shah Deniz Stage 2 gas has been raised," Morstol said.
The gas production within the Stage 2 of Shah Deniz is expected to commence after 2012. The gas will be transported to Greece, Italy and other European countries. In addition, the export will be made to Georgia and Turkey.
"The big interest for the SD gas is encouraging and gives us the confidence together with the State of Azerbaijan and our SD partners to drive the project development, but it is early days in respect of the final marketing solutions," Morstol said.
The contract on the development of "Shahdaniz" field was signed in 1996 in Baku. The parties to the project are: BP (the operator - 25,5%), Statoil - 25,5%, SOCAR, LUKoil, NICO and TOTAL- both 10%, and TPAO - 9%. The gas production in the field commenced in December 2006. Currently the gas from the Shah Deniz field is being delivered to Turkey and Georgia via South Caucasus Pipeline. Azerbaijan also purchases gas from the field. Currently four wells on the Shah Deniz field are working in the field with nearly 2.2mln cu.m of gas per day. The fourth well is planned to be put into operation. Two more wells are envisaged to be put into operation next year.