Azerbaijan, Baku, September 29 / Trend /
Currently, about 6-6.2 million cubic meters of gas are pumped to Azerbaijani underground gas storage facilities, SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) said.
Presently, about 1.7 billion cubic meters of gas were pumped into two underground gas storage facilities of Azerigas PU, which are on the balance of SOCAR, to use in autumn and winter of 2009-2010.
There are two storage facilities in Azerbaijan. The volume of pumping into Kalmaz gas storage was 1,023 billion cubic meters. About 677.5 million cubic meters were pumped into Garadagh gas storage. Intensive operations are being held to modernize and expand the gas storage. This index is 191.7 million cubic meters more than in 2008. Gas pumping will continue until the end of October.
Gas pumping into Azerbaijani underground storage facilities will exceed 1.8 billion cubic meters by the end of the season compared to 1.4 billion cubic meters last season.
Presently, SOCAR is operating in Azerbaijani both storage facilities - Garadagh (active volume is more than 500 million cubic meters) and Kalmaz (active capacity is 1.1-1.2 billion cubic meters). Drills are being repaired here. New infrastructure and new pipelines are expected to be constructed.
About 3 billion cubic meters of gas can be pumped into Azerbaijani underground gas storage facilities in the nearest future. This figure can hit up to 5 billion cubic meters at the prospective third stage, head of SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, said earlier.
It will increase gas provision on the Azerbaijani domestic market and significantly expand Azerbaijani export opportunities.