Rovnag Abdullayev: SOCAR will increase natural gas production in coming years

Baku. 21 August. REPORT.AZ/ The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) is looking to increase production of natural gas in coming years.

Report informs, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev told the Reuters.

SOCAR President says, domestic gas needs are fully covered by the domestic production, yet, we think it's reasonable to buy it during summer months as gas prices are low this time of the year:

"Thus, in order to maximize the profits of commercial opportunities of our gas storage facilities, we are buying Turkmen gas through Iran in the summer at low prices and sell in winter at higher prices. So, we bring added value to our country".

R. Abdullayev noted that the country expected to put on stream several gas fields.

According to him, 1.5 billion cubic metres of gas is planned to be produced from Absheron gas field's first stage in 2019 and 5 bcm in 2022-2023 from the second stage: "In the next 3-5 years, SOCAR plans to build two offshore platforms at the Umid field and to drill minimum 8 high-marginal wells".

"SOCAR plans to start exploration drilling at the Babek field in the second half of 2018. All these activities will seriously increase volume of gas sales domestically and abroad in the next years", SOCAR President said in an interview.

R. Abdullayev also spoke about Azerbaijan's obligation to OPEC and said that Azerbaijan also supports OPEC member countries' decision to cut oil production and remains committed to the obligations the country took: "Our oil production has been slightly decreased, but revenues from oil sales have increased thanks to rise in the oil prices. Azerbaijan's key goal is to avoid selling our national wealth oil for cheap. So, despite oil output in Azerbaijan has been slightly reduced, the revenues have grown, which shows we are on the right track".