Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 4 / Trend A.Badalova/
A final investment decision on the Shah Deniz Stage 2 project is expected to be made by October, 2013, Vice-President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) on marketing and investments Elshad Nasirov said in interview to New Europe.
According to Nasirov, all work is carried out in accordance with the timetable.
"In late December the shareholders of Shah Deniz made a decision to allocate budget for full-fledged development of the Shah Deniz Stage 2 in the 2013," Nasirov said.
He said that the Shah Deniz partners have already started the sales negotiations, the talks with the companies and countries that would like to be potential buyers of the gas from the Caspian region. These talks or negotiations, according to Nasirov, are planned to be finished by the end of March this year.
After that the analysis on the transportation costs and the netback or net revenues from the sales of gas in the two clusters of buyers in Nabucco West and Trans-Adriatic Pipeline corridors will be done in order to make the final decision on the transportation route by the end of June this year.
"This will enable us to make the final investment decision by October this year," Nasirov said.
Currently, the consortium developing Shah Deniz is considering two variants for its gas transportation to Europe - TAP and Nabucco West. Azerbaijan plans to export 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe within the second stage of Shah Deniz gas condensate filed development.
Nasirov also mentioned that some Shah Deniz shareholders (SOCAR, Statoil, BP and Total) are participating in both Nabucco West and TAP projects in order to make sure that all calculations and analysis of the two projects are done correctly and no mistakes are made by choosing one or another pipeline.
As for the competition between the Southern Gas Corridor and Russia's South Stream project, Nasirov said that these are absolutely different projects.
"South Corridor is the construction of new transportation route, plus new volumes of alternative sources of gas are involved. With the South Stream it's only a new way to transport the same volumes of gas produced by the same region and the same producer," Nasirov said.
With regard to SOCAR's downstream involvement in the EU, Nasirov said that the company is ready to consider any projects in the European Union, both in oil and in gas.
"We have made several acquisitions in the European Union and beyond the European Union in Switzerland and we are ready to consider any joint ventures or joint projects to be implemented in the countries where our gas will be supplied," Nasirov said.