Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.30
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
The company SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) plans to increase the volumes of gas in underground storage facilities of Azerbaijan up to 3.5 billion cubic meters in the pumping season of 2015, a source in the SOCAR company told Trend Dec.30.
Azerbaijan has two underground gas storages facilities, Kalmaz and Garadagh, which are on the balance of SOCAR.
At the end of the pumping season of 2014, the residual volumes of gas in underground storage exceeded 3.23 billion cubic meters (1.75 billion cubic meters in Garadagh storage, 1.48 billion cubic meters in Kalmaz storage), compared to about 3.43 billion cubic meters at the end of the previous season.
"Work on drilling of new wells is regularly held in order to increase the opportunities for pumping at the storage," said the source. "It is planned for 2015 that the volumes of gas in storage will be about 3.5 billion cubic meters on the result of the pumping season."
Gas from underground storage is used (in the colder months of the year, when gas consumption increases) to meet the needs of the country, as well as in case of the need to fulfill export obligations. At present, the volume of gas in underground storage facilities of the country is a little more than 2.3 billion cubic meters, which is associated with the beginning of the gas extraction season.
The country's underground storages allow the storage of nearly 3.5 billion cubic meters of gas.
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