Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.1 / Trend, A. Taghiyeva /
Greece will pay off its gas debt worth about $300 million to Turkey by the end of January 2012, the Aksam newspaper quoted the Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz told journalists yesterday.
"Because of the economic crisis that has covered Greece since 2009, the country was unable to pay off its debt to Turkey. However the Greek side has now set a deadline to pay this off," Yildiz said.
Turkey imports Azerbaijani gas sourced from the first phase of the Shah Deniz field development. At present, Greece imports 750 million cubic metres of re-exported Azerbaijani gas from Turkey.
Reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic metres of gas. Another six billion cubic metres will be delivered to Turkey in addition to 6.6 billion cubic metres within the Shah Deniz first stage of development.
The contract to develop the offshore Shah Deniz field was signed June 4, 1996. Participants in the agreement are: BP (operator) - 25.5 per cent, Statoil Hydro - 25.5 per cent, NICO - 10 per cent, Total - 10 per cent, LukAgip - 10 per cent, TPAO - 9 per cent, SOCAR-10 per cent.