Why does Azerbaijan need to import gas?

When asked by journalists why does Azerbaijan need to import Russian gas, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said that SOCAR has already submitted its proposals on Russian gas purchase to Russian Gasprom company.

He said that Azerbaijan is interested in purchase of Russian gas, because it has required infrastructure to import up to 3 bcm of gas.

Abdullayev explained that Azerbaijan needs imported gas to solve several issues. First of all, during the oil extraction both SOCAR and the consortium operated by BP pump certain volume of associated gas into the oil wells to maintain bed pressure and the remaining volume is handed over to the country. The less gas is used, the more oilmen could use to pump into the oil wells to increase production performance. Oil price is always much higher, than gas price. Therefore, such an approach suits all business partners.

Secondly, after the upgrade possibilities of the Azerbaijani gas storages have expanded and now they are able to store more than 5 bcm of gas. Azerbaijan itself pumps no more than 3.3-3.5 bcm of gas. “Thus, we have been negotiating with Iran. In summer Iran has a big volume of gas, which is not used. The peak season of gas consumption in Iran is winter time. We have been negotiating to pump Iranian gas into our gas storages to supply northern regions of Iran with gas in winter time,” Abdullayev added.—0—‘