Cost of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz project determined: minister

"Investors must be confident in long-term, reliability and stability of their deliveries to world markets," Aliyev said.

The contract on development of off-shore Shah Deniz field was signed on 4 June 1996. Shah Deniz participating interests are: ?? (operator - 25.5 percent), StatoilHydro (25.5 percent), SOCAR (10 percent), LukAgip (10 percent), NICO (10 percent), Total (10 percent), and TPAO (9 percent).

Reserves of the field make up 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. At present daily production amounts to roughly 22 million cubic meters. But it will be increased to 27 million cubic meters of gas after launching a new well soon.

Gas production at Shah Deniz began in December 2006. Gas is presently transported to Georgia and Turkey via the South Caucasus Pipeline. Gas from the field is exported via the South Caucasus gas pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum).

The first development phase envisages producing an annual 9 billion cubic meters of gas. This volume will be sold to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The production volume in the second phase scheduled for 2014 will increase to 20 billion cubic meters.

/Trend Capital/