Baku, Azerbaijan, June 5
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
Azerbaijan and Australia have a potential to cooperate in the oil and gas sphere, Luke Simpkins, Australian MP told Trend during this visit to Baku.
"Although our countries are at a long distance from each other, we have many common interests," he said. "Oil and gas sector is very important for Australia and today, we saw that it is important for Azerbaijan as well."
The MP said that in order to start productive cooperation between Azerbaijan and Australia, it is important to study all the possibilities for this, to carry out analysis and create a legislative framework.
"Currently, Australian parliament is discussing the issue of creating Azerbaijani-Australian Interparliamentary friendship group," said Simpkins.
He added that Azerbaijani embassy in Australia also carries out great work to expand the relations between the two countries. "I believe that today, there are very good opportunities to develop the relations between Azerbaijan and Australia."
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) production is actively developing in Australia.
Shell is constructing the first floating LNG plant in the world. It is forecasted that the enterprise will produce nearly 110,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, including 5.3 million metric tons of liquid hydrocarbons and 3.6 million metric tons of LNG per year.
Currently, intensive work is underway in Azerbaijan as part of the implementation of Stage 2 of development of Shah Deniz gas and condensate field, pipeline projects [construction of Trans-Anatolian and Trans-Adriatic pipelines] aimed at ensuring Azerbaijani gas export to Europe.
Currently, the total proven oil reserve in Azerbaijan nears 2 billion metric tons, gas reserve - 2.6 trillion cubic meters, while the projected reserves near 6 billion cubic meters of gas and 4 billion metric tons of oil.
The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Australia stood at $4.38 million as of January-April 2015, or 2.65 times more than in the same period of 2014, according to Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee.
Edited by CN
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