Since April 17, Turkey has suspended the reception of Azerbaijani gas within the framework of the “Shah Deniz-1” project due to the expiration of the current commercial agreement.
Tamam Bayatli, head of the press service of BP-Azerbaijan (technical operator of the project), said the parties are currently working on concluding a new commercial agreement on the purchase and sale of gas.
“At present, negotiations from the Turkish side, represented by the state pipeline company BOTAS, are continuing,” Bayatli said.
According to Bayatli, the stoppage of the import of Azerbaijani gas by Turkey through the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline, in general, did not affect the production volumes at the “Shah Deniz” field.
“In general, before the suspension in the Turkish direction, daily production from “Shah Deniz-1” field since the beginning of the year was 57 million cubic meters. This week the daily production volumes varied from 55 to 56.6 million cubic meters,” a person familiar with the situation in the gas sector of the country told Turan correspondent.
According to him, the previous volumes still are transported to Turkey through another pipeline: through TANAP, that is, in transit to Europe. Italy is currently actively purchasing Azerbaijani gas for injection into underground storage facilities.
Nobody in Baku doubts that a new gas agreement with Turkeywill be signed soon.
Caspian Barrel
