Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept.2. / Trend E.Ismayilov /
As for Sept.2, Azerigas production union of SOCAR (a state oil company of Azerbaijan) pumps about 24-25 million cubic meters of gas per day into Azerbaijani gas system compared to 25-26 million cubic meters as for Aug.21, a source in SOCAR said on Sept.2.
At present, the company pumps about 24-24 million cubic meters of gas per day and this volume is the same with the volume of the gas pumped during the autumn-winter season.
About 7 million cubic meters of the gas, pumped into the country's gas system per day, is pumped into the Azerbaijani underground gas storages to further use in winter season, the source said.
There are two underground gas storages in Azerbaijan, including Garadagh gas storage with a 500 million cubic meters active capacity and Kalmaz with a 1.1 billion cubic meters active capacity.
In 2009, SOCAR (a state oil company of Azerbaijan) plans to pump 1.8 - 1.9 billion cubic meters of gas into Azerbaijani underground storage for use in the autumn-winter period of 2009-2010, compared to 1.4 billion in last season, Head of SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, said earlier.
At present, SOCAR conducts work as a part of the first phase to increase the active capacity of Garadagh gas storage. Reconstruction of gas storage envisages two phases. The first phase is targets increasing its active capacity to 1.4 billion cubic meters and the second phase expanding its active capacity to 2.3 billion cubic meters.
According to Abdullayev, it will be possible to pump 3 billion cubic meters of gas into underground storage facilities in Azerbaijan soon, but on the promising third phase this number could be raised to 5 billion cubic meters.
This will enable to improve gas supply to Azerbaijani domestic market and expand significantly the country's export opportunities, Abdullayev said.
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