Industry and Energy

Home page

Industry and Energy

Azerbaijan eyes more gas, less oil in 2017: minister

25 January 2017 12:05 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan is planning to produce more gas and less oil this year, energy minister Natiq Aliyev has said in an interview to the Natural Gas World.

The country plans to increase gross gas output by 0.8% to 29.561bn m3 in 2017. That follows a decline of 0.6% year-on-year to 29.331bn m3 in 2016. Of that 18.714bn was commercial gas, a 3.9% decline from 2015, as more gas was needed for re-injection at the Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli (ACG) oilfields to maintain crude oil production. Gas stored in underground facilities reached 1.167bn m3 as of January 1.

According to Aliyev, Azerbaijan plans to complete the second phase of Shah Deniz gas field, expected to become operational initially next year, as well as keeping the SD1 output high. He said that it is expected more than 10bn m3of gas to be produced from SD1 in 2017, compared to 9.9bn m3 last year.