Azerbaijan, Baku, 16 August / Trend corr. I.Khalilova/ State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and Russia's Gazprom agreed at an initial stage on swap supplies of Azerbaijani gas to Georgia, Russia's Trade Representative to Azerbaijan Yuri Shchedrin said on 14 August.
"The sides continue active negotiations. The heads of the two states made a conceptual decision on cooperation in energy field," said Shchedrin.
According to Shchedrin, Gazprom is independently negotiating with SOCAR and Azerigaz CJSC. Therefore, no one is going to interfere with their agreements. But it was reported there is agreement on swap supplies and supply of Azerbaijani gas to Russia.
Gazprom initiated purchase of Azerbaijani gas from the Shah Deniz gas and condensate field, located in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea, during the visit of the Chairman of Gazprom's Council of Directors Alexei Miller in June. The second time he visited Azerbaijan within the visit of Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev at the beginning of July.
Some 8.6bln cu m of gas per year and 45,000 barrels of condensate per day is expected to be produced from Shah Deniz within Stage I. BP plans to produce 7.68bln cu m of gas and 16.3mln barrels of condensate per day from the field in 2008.
Average 21mln cu m of gas per day is produced from Shah Deniz at the moment, with about 10-11mln cu m of gas per day supplied to Turkey and the remaining volume to Azerbaijan, Georgia and to the pumping stations of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipe as fuel.
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 Shah Deniz commenced in December 2006. The gas is transported to Georgia and Turkey via South Caucasus gas pipeline. Azerbaijan also purchased the gas.
Some 8.6bln cu m of 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 commence to be realized after 2012.
On 14 August, the official exchange rate totalled 0.8133 AZN/USD.
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