Azerbaijan, Baku, April 9 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) plans to commission by mid-year a gas compressor station on the Gunashli-4 platform on the field of the same name in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, a source in SOCAR said on Friday.
All work on the construction of the station has been completed. The gas compressor station was built for the collection of associated gas and its transportation to the coast.
"All the physical work within the construction of the new station has been completed. Verification of the equipment and start-up operations are underway," the source said.
Earlier it was planned that this facility will operate under the Clean Development Mechanism of the UN Kyoto Protocol. The Clean Development Mechanism allows to realize projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in countries, for which there were not set the volume of emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.
However, this project will not be included in the Clean Development Mechanism, and will be implemented to meet the needs of SOCAR in the collection of associated gas and its delivery to the coast.
SOCAR plans to collect the low pressure associated gas in the shallow part of the Guneshli field. This gas after boosting (increasing pressure) will be sent to Azerbaijani gas processing plant or to the national transportation system, and then delivered to customers. Pipelines for gas transportation have already been laid.
Earlier, because of the absence of infrastructure, this gas was vented into the atmosphere, which brought large damage to the environment. The cost of creation of the necessary infrastructure and realization of this project is estimated at $150 million. The volume of venting is nearly 200 million cubic meters of gas per year.