Azerbaijan, Baku, February 14/ Trend E.Ismaylov/
Taking into account the current capabilities of underground gas storages in Azerbaijan, the maximum volume of extracted gas is about 26 million cubic metres per day, a source at SOCAR (Azerbaijan State Oil Company) told Trend on Tuesday. There are two underground gas storages in Azerbaijan, at Kalmaz and Garadagh.
Generally the maximum amount of gas withdrawal from storage facilities in Azerbaijan at the beginning of the injection season will reach 24-25 million cubic metres per day. In the second phase it gradually declines to 19 million cubic metres, while in the third phase, up to nine million cubic metres per day, the source said.
"Selected volumes of gas are determined depending on the level of gas pressure in the storages," the source said. The daily volume of gas extraction will be increased by raising storage capacity, the source added.
A source said earlier that the gas volumes in the storage facilities may be brought up to five billion cubic metres by 2014-2015. The process of increasing power injection will depend on the drilling of new wells and repairing old ones.
According to the forecasts, the gas volume in the facilities during the pumping season in 2012 may reach 3.5 billion cubic metres compared to about 3.25 billion cubic metres in 2011.
SOCAR planned to pump 3.5 billion cubic metres 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.