Azerbaijan, Baku, August 19 /Trend, E.Ismayilov/
It is expected that agreements on purchasing Azerbaijani gas by European buyers starting from the second phase of the Shat Deniz gas condensate field will be signed soon, President of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Rovnag Abdullayev told journalists on Monday.
According to him, work within the project and in particular with gas buyers continue.
"It is planned to hold a large event soon where it is expected that agreements will be signed with the buyers of Azerbaijani gas," Abdullayev said.
The peak of production within the second phase of the Shah Deniz-2 project will begin from 2022 and last for up to eight years.
It is planned to carry out drilling in five clusters and the whole process will be completed in 2022. The first gas is planned to be produced in 2018.
Shah Deniz reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
A consortium of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development announced its choice of the TAP project in late June, as a gas transportation route to the European markets.
Nabucco West was the second pipeline, which competed for the transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe.
TAP is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and then to Western Europe. The gas which will be produced in the second phase of Shah Deniz field, is considered as the main source of the project.
The initial capacity of the TAP pipeline will be 10 billion cubic meters per year with the possibility of expanding to 20 billion cubic meters per year.
TAP shareholders are BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Statoil (20 percent), Fluxys (16 percent), Total (10 percent), E.ON (9 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).
The construction of TAP is expected to start in 2015.
The contract to develop the offshore Shah Deniz field was signed on June 4, 1996.
Participants to the agreement are: BP (operator) - 25.5 per cent, Statoil - 25.5 per cent, NICO - 10 per cent, Total - 10 per cent, Lukoil - 10 per cent, TPAO - nine per cent and SOCAR - 10 per cent.