Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 6 / Trend E. Ismayilov /
SOCAR has drilled three new underground gas storage wells with SOCAR, a SOCAR source told Trend on Monday.
There are two underground gas storage facilities -- Kalmaz and Garadagh -- in Azerbaijan.
A source said two wells are being drilled at the Garadagh underground gas storage. The depth of each well is over 2,300 meters.
SOCAR is drilling one well at the Kalmaz gas storage facility. Its depth is about 1,200 meters.
"The work is underway to begin another well drilling at the Kalmaz gas storage facility," the source said. "The equipment is being transferred while drilling a new well."
New wells are drilled to increase the gas volume stored at the facilities.
A source said earlier that the gas volumes in the storage facilities may be brought up to 5 billion cubic meters by 2014-2015.
According to the forecasts, the gas volume in the facilities during the pumping season in 2012 may reach 3.5 billion cubic meters compared to about 3.25 billion cubic meters in 2011.
SOCAR planned to pump 3.5 billion cubic meters of gas to the underground gas storage facilities in 2011, but gas pumping was stopped earlier than planned due to poor weather conditions and increased consumption.