Azerbaijan, Baku, March 10 / Trend , E.Ismayilov/
In terms of prospects to increase gas production in Azerbaijan, it is necessary to create an underground gas storage on the basis of the offshore gas field Bahar in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) First Vice-President Khoshbakht Yusifzade said.
The Bahar has great potential, because there is a great number of stratas in this field," Yusifzade said. A total of 150 billion cubic meters of gas has been produced from the field.
The main difficulty with establishing a gas storage in this field is that the field is offshore, Yusifzade said. "Effective sites usually have difficulties," he added.
The SOCAR develops the Bahar independently. A major part of reserves in the field have been developed.
The Bahar is a unique field. In 80s of the last century, the field produced 16-17 million cubic meters of natural gas, which provided 30-40 percent of country's demand for gas.
Azerbaijan now operates two underground gas storage facilities - the Garadag and Galmaz.
The active capacity of the Garadag gas storage is 500 million cubic meters. The SOCAR will complete the first phase of expanding the Garadag underground gas storage to 1.4 billion cubic meters by March 2010. The active capacity of the Galmaz gas storage is 1.1 billion cubic meters.
Azerbaijan needs underground gas storage facilities to store surplus of gas in summer and use it in winter.
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