Azerbaijan’s Jan-Aug gas exports from Shah Deniz I rise 4.4 pct y/y
Exports from the first stage of Azerbaijan’s giant Shah Deniz gas field stood at 4.990 billion cubic metres (bcm) in January-August this year, up 4.4 percent from a year earlier, the State Statistics Committee said on Monday. Gas from Shah Deniz I is exported through the South Caucasus pipeline. Export volumes from Shah Deniz I, operated by an international consortium led by BP, were 7.314 bcm in 2017. Azerbaijan’s gas exports through all pipelines totalled 15.040 bcm in January-August this year. The European Union is trying to reduce its dependence on Russian gas by developing the so-called Southern Gas Corridor, which is expected to bring about 10 bcm of gas a year to Europe by 2020. Another 6 bcm of gas will be exported to Turkey. The gas would come from the Shah Deniz II field via the 1,850 km (1,150 mile) Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) through Turkey, the South Caucasus pipeline extension through Azerbaijan and Georgia and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to Greece, Albania and Italy. Azeri oil exports through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline via Georgia and Turkey declined by 0.8 percent to 22.288 million tonnes in the first eight months of this year versus the same period in 2017, the State Statistics Committee also said.