Ilham Nasirov, the Executive Director of AZBTC CO, stated at a conference Caspian Oil, Gas, Fields 2006, which commenced in Baku on 26 October, that at present the Azerbaijan oil reserves comprises of 30 bln barrels and gas reserves of 5 trln cu.m, Trendreports.
The Caspian oil reserves (not including Iran) are estimated at 210 bln barrels. This volume can provide the worldwide demand in oil over the subsequent 8 years, he stressed. In 2010 the daily amount of world oil consumption will make up 87 mln barrels, while by 2030 it is expected to increase to 117 mln barrels.
The construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline enabled 350 tankers a year to be re-routed from the Black Sea and the Turkish Gulf., he stated.
He noted that the capacity of the BTC will be expanded to 1.2 million barrels a day to pump necessary volumes of oil via this pipeline. With the consideration of oil from Kashagan field of Kazakhstan, the oil production will be increased to 1.5 million barrels in 2008-2012. The discharge capacity of the pipeline can be increased to 2 mln barrels with the consideration of oil to be attracted from Mediterranean producers, Nasirov stressed.
At present the upgrade of the Aktau-Baku system continues in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. It is planned to transport around 500,000 barrels of oil by mid-2010 and to further increase the figure to 750 barrels a day, he stated.