Azerbaijan, Baku, September 28 / Trend E. Ismayilov /
Daily gas production in Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea, has reached 24 million cubic meters, a source on the oil and gas market said.
Gas produced from Shah Deniz is transported to Georgia and Turkey. Azerbaijan receives some gas within the project, while the rest is sold.
A source said that roughly 13-14 million cubic meters of the total volume of gas produced in the field are exported to Turkey via the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline. About 8.9 million cubic meters is supplied to Azerbaijan with the rest supplied to Georgia.
Peak production is forecast at over 8.6-9 billion cubic meters. Gas production may be brought up to 25 billion cubic meters per year under the second phase of development.
Djan Suphi, the head of BP's representative office in Turkey, said that it gas production is planned to be launched within the second stage of field development in 2017 and reach the plateau stage by 2020.
Shah Deniz's reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The contract to develop Shah Deniz was signed in June 1996. Participants are: BP (operator) - 25.5 percent; Statoil - 25.5 percent; NICO - 10 percent; Total - 10 percent; LukAgip - 10 percent; TPAO - 9 percent; and, SOCAR - 10 percent.