In his interview with Natural Gas World Magazine, SOCAR’s (The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic) Vice President for Oil and Gas Transportation and Gas Facilities Rahman Gurbanov said that during the first 9 months of this year Azerbaijan purchased 2.64bn m³ of gas, produced at the “Shah Deniz” field.
According to R. Gurbanov, this volume was purchased to compensate for the gas deficit in the domestic market.
At the same time, many local media outlets presented this news as sensational.
We asked Ilham Shaban, head of the Azerbaijani Center for Oil Research, for a comment.
According to him, the most valuable thing in the information announced by R. Gurbanov is not that it is eventful, but rather its statistical component, that is, what volume of gas from the «Shah Deniz» field has been put on the domestic market of Azerbaijan.
“From October 2000 until 31 December 2006, Azerbaijan imported Russian gas. Moreover, the import volumes in different years exceeded 4 billion cubic meters. From 2007, Azerbaijan has replaced imported volumes with gas, extracted from the “Shah Deniz” field.
Thus, since 2007, Azerbaijan purchases gas from the “Shah Deniz” field to cover its own needs. There is no secret”, – said I. Shaban.
The expert noted that almost one-third of “Shah Deniz” gas accounted for the Azerbaijani market.
“Therefore, the fact that Azerbaijan purchased gas from the “Shah Deniz” consortium isn’t news”, – he said.
Alena Salayeva
