State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) is in talks with the Russian Gazprom company and Iran for the procurement of 3 billion cubic meters of gas annually.


The President of SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, said, "There is still interest in purchasing Russian gas. We conveyed Gazprom our suggestion. We need gas for injecting into the reservoirs at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of fields to maintain stable oil production. Secondly, we plan to inject additional volumes of gas in Azerbaijani underground gas storage facilities to fully use them."


He added,"The capacity of gas storage facilities is around 5 billion cubic meters, and, as a pilot project, we want to test the maximum capacity."


Abdullayev said SOCAR is in talks with Iran about swapping seasonal supplies.


He added,"Iran has much unused gas during summer. Talks are being held about pumping Iranian gas into Azerbaijani gas storage facilities and providing the northern provinces of Iran with gas in winter. At present, experts are discussing technical issues."

www.ann.az