Azerbaijan, Baku, 11 April / Trend corr S. Aliyev/ Drilling of the first well from TPG-500 platform (5th development well) in the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field is planned to be completed by the end of May, the Government reported on 11 April. After that the production in the field will rise to 26-27mln cu m of gas per 24 hours from present 21-22mln cu m.
At present, four wells produce gas in the Shah Deniz field. Daily, Turkey receives some 13-14mln cu m of the Shah Deniz gas, Azerbaijan receives over 7mln cu m and Georgia - 1mln cu m.
The contract on development of off-shore Shah Deniz field was signed on 4 June 1996. The sides to the contract are ВР (operator - 25.5%), Statoil (25.5%), SOCAR (10%), LukAgip (10%), NICO (10%), Total (10%) and TPAO (9%).
Gas production in the field was launched in December 2006. Currently, gas is transported to Georgia and Turkey via the South-Caucasus gas pipeline. Azerbaijan also purchases the gas.
Some 8.8bln cu m of the gas is envisaged to be produced within Stage I per year. The gas will be supplied to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The production will be increased up to 20bln cu m within Stage II, which will be commenced for realization after 2012. At this Stage, the gas is implied to be exported to the Europe.
The correspondent can be contacted at: [email protected]