By 2050 Azerbaijan could increase gas export up to 50 bcm

By 2050 annual export of natural gas from Azerbaijan could increase up to 50 bcm, said Azerbaijani Deputy Energy Minister.

Yesterday Abbasov met with Otto Wolf, honorary chairman of the Encouragement Union at the Institute of Mining and Energy Law under the Ruhr University, reported the Ministry’s press office.

“Currently Azerbaijan’s main goal is to increase the volume of production and natural gas export. The works done in the country to increase gas production and implement the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) allow increasing annual volume of Azerbaijani gas export up to 50 bcm in 2050,” Abbasov said.

He reminded that Azerbaijani gas export to the European market will start in 2019-2020.

At the meeting Deputy Minister has also mentioned the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania-Interconnection (AGRI) project, which envisages liquefied gas export to Europe. “As gas export via the gas pipelines is much cheaper, implementation of the AGRI project is planned in the future as a part of SGC,” Abbasov added.

The shareholders of AGRI project are Azerbaijani SOCAR, Georgian COGC, Romanian Romgaz and Hungarian MVM, which in January 2011 established AGRI LNG Co company. The companies have 25% share each in AGRI LNG Co. SOCAR is the chairman of Board of AGRI.

AGRI envisages export of up to 8 bcm of liquefied gas a year. At the first stage it is planned to export 2 bcm of gas via AGRI and at the second and third stages – from 5 to 8 bcm of gas.

The project envisages construction of terminals for liquefied gas in Konstanza and Kulevi ports.

* In 2015 Azerbaijan extracted 19.72 bcm of tank gas (growth by 5.5%).—0—