Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 16 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) increased the volume of gas withdrawal from the underground gas storage facilities in Azerbaijan up to 4.66 million cubic meters, a source in SOCAR said.
SOCAR has today launched a gas withdrawal from the Garadagh underground gas storage facility. This in turn implies a reduction in the volume of gas withdrawal from the Kalmaz gas storage by one million cubic meters.
"Now more than three million cubic meters of gas will be withdrawn from Kalmaz and one million cubic meters - from Garadagh," the source said.
In the first half of December, SOCAR withdrew from underground storage facilities around 35.3 million cubic meters of gas.
Following the completion of the gas pumping season, the volume of gas reserves in underground facilities in Azerbaijan amounted to 3.05 billion cubic meters. Of the total amount of gas available in storage facilities, more than 1.13 billion cubic meters remained from last year.
Last year, SOCAR pumped about 2 billion cubic meters of gas into the country's underground gas storage facilities compared to 1.4 billion cubic meters in 2008.
The gas pumping process for use during autumn and winter ends in October. However, due to favorable weather conditions this year, the process has continued until late November.