Ceremony to authorize Shah-Deniz project to take place on December 12

 Although the talks between State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and the Shah-Deniz partners on the Shah-Deniz Phase 2 project still continue, they are already at the final stage, a source from SOCAR told Turan.

The same source added that the ceremony to authorize the Phase 2 of the Shah-Deniz gas condensate field located in the deep part of the Caspian Sea is planned to be held in Four Seasons hotel on December 17, 2013.

The source confirmed that the talks with the partners were complicated. “This is understandable. This is the first complex project in the deep sector of the Caspian Sea. The following projects should be carried out in parallel for successful gas production on the Shah-Deniz-2: expansion of the Sangachal gas terminal, expansion of the South Caucasian gas pipeline – this is actually construction of a new gas pipeline in Azerbaijan, construction of the trans-Anadolu (TANAP) gas pipeline in Turkey and construction of the trans-Adriatic gas pipeline (TAP). It is hard to synchronize and combine all the works and this is rather risky,” said SOCAR’s representative. 

He said despite that all the partners are about to complete the talks. Some issues will be solved next year, but next year the partners decided to authorize the project.

The Shah-Deniz Phase 2 costs $25 billion. During the project implementation its cost could go up by 20%. About $3 billion has been already spent for the project since 2010.

* The Shah-Deniz shareholders are ВР (25.5% -operator), Statoil (25.5%), SOCAR (10%), Total (10%), LUKoil (10%), NICO (10%) and TPAO (9%).  It is planned to extract the first gas at the end of 2018. Export will begin in 2019. It is planned to export 16 billion cub.m. of gas, of which 6 billion cub .m. to Turkey, 1 billion cub.m. to Greece, 1 billion cub.m. to Bulgaria and 8 billion cub.m. to Italy. The contract expires on October 16, 2036.—0--