Azerbaijan ahead of some European countries for gas storage capacity

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan now has more gas storage capacity than several European countries, the State Oil Company (SOCAR) has said on its official Facebook page.

The company stated that in a time of rapid growth in global natural gas demand, the strategic importance of underground gas storage facilities becomes relevant once again.

"SOCAR owns two underground gas storage facilities, Galmaz and Garadagh, with a total capacity of 3.5 billion cubic meters," the company said.

The work is currently underway to expand Azerbaijan's underground gas storage facilities to 5 billion cubic meters, it added.

According to the company, Azerbaijan's annual gas consumption is 13 billion cubic meters, and the country's available gas storage facilities are sufficient to meet approximately 30 percent of domestic demand.

It was earlier reported that Azerbaijan increased gas transportation by approximately 12.9 percent in January 2022. About 2 billion cubic meters of gas were sold abroad. Turkey received 0.8 billion cubic meters, Europe received 0.8 billion cubic meters, and Georgia received 0.4 billion cubic meters. Furthermore, over 0.5 billion cubic meters were exported to Turkey via TANAP.

In addition, gas output totaled 4.1 billion cubic meters. 1.2 billion cubic meters were extracted from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field block, while 2.2 billion cubic meters were extracted from Shah Deniz. During this time, SOCAR produced 0.7 billion cubic meters of gas.

Since its inception until 1 February 2022, over 191 billion cubic meters of gas have been extracted from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli oilfield with nearly 160 billion cubic meters extracted from Shah Deniz. During this time, Shah Deniz exported more than 110 billion cubic meters of gas.