| Azerbaijan to double natural gas exports to Russia |
| Date: 2010/9/7 Click: 1723 |
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Azerbaijan on Friday agreed to more than double its natural gas exports to Russia and the agreement was signed during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to the country, according to reports reaching here.
The new agreement, signed by Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR and Russian gas giant Gazprom, was a supplement to an earlier accord signed by the two firms covering the period of from 2010 up to 2015.
According to the new deal, Azerbaijan will increase its gas exports to Russia to 2 billion cubic meters per year from 2011 and to over 2 billion cubic meters per year from 2012.
The original accord, signed on Oct. 14 last year, agreed to exports no less than 500 million cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas to Russia annually.
Azerbaijan began gas supplies to Russia on Jan. 1 this year and SOCAR has exported 494.6 million cubic meters of gas to Russia between January and July.
Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliev said his country has the potential to extract 5 trillion cubic meters of natural gas a year. The country is currently extracting 2 trillion cubic meters of gas a year. Azerbaijani gas reaches Russia through the Baku-Novo-Filya pipeline. The agreement on increasing Azerbaijani gas exports to Russia highlighted Medvedev's two-day visit to Baku, the Azerbaijani capital. |
