Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 7 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
As of Jan. 4, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) has collected 210 million cubic meters of gas since Dec. 2010 from the underground gas holders in Azerbaijan, which has been supplied to the gas distribution system of the country, Khalq gazeti newspaper reported, referring the head of SOCAR's department Namig Rafiyev.
He said that this would be enough for 40-50 percent of daily gas consumption in Azerbaijan.
At present, Azerbaijan has two underground gas holders in Kalmaz and Garadagh.
He further said that last year, wells were repaired both in Kalmaz and Garadagh underground gas holders. In particular, 46 wells were repaired in Kalmaz gas holder, 26 wells in Garadagh, while this year, there are plans to drill 6 new wells in Kalmaz and two in Garadagh gas holders.
"The average depth of wells in these gas holders is 3,000 and 1,800 meters respectively," Rafiyev said.
Following the completion of the gas pumping season, the volume of gas reserves in underground facilities in Azerbaijan amounted to 3.06 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.