Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 18 /Trend, E.Ismayilov/
In October-November 2011, the consortium developing Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz offshore gas condensate field will make a decision to choose one of the previously proposed pipeline projects to export gas to Europe, the President of SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) Rovnag Abdullayev told reporters on Tuesday.
According to him, earlier the pipeline projects Nabucco, ITGI and TAP submitted their final proposals to consortium to supply Azerbaijani gas to Europe.
The final decision to choose one of the projects should be made in the near future, as well as to authorize the second stage of the Shah Deniz field development, so that they would be reflected in the budget for next year, Abdullayev said.
All proposed options for the export of Azerbaijani gas are part of the Southern Gas Corridor - one of priority energy projects for the EU.
It is designed to diversify the routes and sources of supply, and thereby increase the energy security of the EU. The Southern Gas Corridor includes Nabucco pipelines, Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), ITGI (Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline).
The contract to develop the offshore Shah Deniz field was signed June 4, 1996. Reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
Participants in the agreement are: BP (operator) - 25.5 percent, Statoil Hydro - 25.5 percent, NICO - 10 percent, Total - 10 percent, LukAgip - 10 percent, TPAO - 9 percent, SOCAR-10 percent.
At present, gas is transported to Georgia and Turkey via the South Caucasus gas pipeline.