Azerbaijan, Baku, April 15 / Trend, E. Ismayilov /
An official opening ceremony of a new compressor station in Astara, which is a constituent element of the transportation infrastructure, connecting Azerbaijan and Iran, will be held in the coming days, a source in SOCAR said.
"The state commission has already accepted the new station and it is expected that its official opening will be held on April 15," the source said.
He said that earlier repairs were carried out on the pipeline connecting Azerbaijan and Iran. The rest of the work envisages, particularly the replacement of some sections of the pipeline.
A gas compressor station consisting of two compressors in Astara was already built in 2005 in order to provide gas to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (NAR). However, to better provide NAR with gas, as well as implement obligations under the contract on gas supplies, signed between Azerbaijan and Iran, the question of building an additional station became urgent.
The new gas compressor station was planned to be built in two phases. The first phase envisages the installation of six compressor units. As a result, given the already existing station daily volume of gas supplies to Iran can hit 3.5 million cubic meters per day.
Azerbaijan transported more than one million cubic meters of gas to Iran every day under the swap supplies to provide NAR with gas before the construction of the new station.
The second phase envisaged the installation of four more units, as a result of which daily volume of gas supplies from Azerbaijan to Iran can reach five million cubic meters.
SOCAR and NIGEC signed an agreement on long-term Azerbaijani gas supplies to Iran in Baku on Jan.12. Under the contract, which concludes after five years, Azerbaijan will supply one billion cubic meters of gas to Iran in 2011 and the volume will increase in the coming years.
Azerbaijan and Iran are connected with the Astara-Bind-Biand gas pipeline with a length of 1,474.5 kilometers, including 296.5 kilometers in Azerbaijan. Its design capacity was 10 billion cubic meters a year and now it is lower. The route is a branch of the Gazakh-Astara-Iran Pipeline commissioned in 1971. Three compressor stations, including in Gazi-Magomed, Aghdash and Gazakh, were built on its route. The transmission system is designed to pressure 55 atmospheres.