Azerbaijan, Baku, 5 June / corr Trend E.Ismayilov / The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) stated that Azerbaijan should build an additional export gas pipeline, because the capacity of the existing South Caucadus Pipeline (SCP) will not be efficient enough to transport the schduled volume of fuel.
Khoshbakht Yusifzade, the SOCAR First Vice President for field geology, geophysics and development, called this idea of constructing a second gas pipeline as 'perspective'.
"Gas reserves in the Caspian are more than oil. However, Azerbaijan lacks [export] gas pipeline," Yusifzade told journalists on 5 June.
Currently Shah Deniz gas is exported to Georgia and Turkey via the SCP.
With respect to plans on construction of an additional gas pipeline, the SOCAR First Vice President mentioned the oil export, stating the necessity for several oil pipelines in Azerbaijan as well.
"The Baku-Supsa oil pipeline has been inoperative for over two years. Imagine what would we have done if there was no Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan export oil pipeline," Yusifzade inquired
BP is an operator of the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline with the capacity of 7mln tons a year and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan with the capacity of 50mln tons a year. The pipeline exports light oil produced from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli fields. The Baku-Supsa pipeline has not operated since 2006 due to technical reasons, whilst export via it will be restored by the end of summer. Technical repair work has been completed and now testing and partial fulfillment of the pipeline is underway.
The correspondent can be contacted at: [email protected]