Azerbaijan, Baku, July 12 / Trend /
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) exports more than three million cubic meters of gas per day to Russia under the medium-term contract, a source in the oil and gas sector reported.
The medium-term contract on purchase-sale of Azerbaijani gas to Russia (with the possibility of extension) was signed between SOCAR and Gazprom in Baku Oct. 14. It covers 2010-2014. Under the contract, the Azerbaijani side will annually supply gas amounting to no less than 500 million cubic meters to Russia. The contract did not specify a limit to the gas supply volume. SOCAR will notify the opposite side of the amount which the company can deliver for the next six months.
Azerbaijan launched gas supplies to Russia Jan.1, 2010. Gazprom and SOCAR have agreed upon volumes of Azerbaijani gas to be exported to Russia in 2011. In 2010, this figure would be about two billion cubic meters.
Daily volume of gas export to Georgia is about 0.5 million cubic meters of gas.
SOCAR supplies own gas to Georgia within the activity on the Georgian market through a pipeline linking the two countries in the Gazakh district of Azerbaijan. Power flow of gas through this pipeline is about 3 billion cubic meters of gas a year.
Azerbaijan and Georgia signed an agreement in November 2008. It creates the possibility of SOCAR's activity on the Georgian gas market over the next five years, beginning from 2009. According to the memorandum, SOCAR established a subsidiary SOCAR Georgia Gas to implement the project. It provides groups-gas consumers determined by the Georgian government (social group).
SOCAR and the Georgian government signed an agreement to transfer the management of 30 gas distribution networks covering different regions of Georgia in late December 2008.
Azerbaijan daily supplies to Iran 1-1.1 million cubic meters of gas for providing the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic located in the blockade with gas within the swap operations.
Azerbaijan and Iran are connected with the Gazi-Magomed-Astara-Bind-Biand gas pipeline, 1,474.5-kilometers long. Its capacity was 10 billion cubic meters a year, but now it is lower. This route is a branch of the Gazakh-Astara-Iran pipeline commissioned in 1971. Three compressor stations -Gazi-Magomed, Aghdash and Gazakh -were built.
SOCAR and NIGEC signed a short-term contract for gas supplies to Iran in January. Signing of a long-term contract between the sides is expected in autumn of 2010.