Azerbaijan Ups Imports as Exports Rise
Azerbaijan has increased gas imports by 22.6% on year to 1.59bn m3 in the nine months of 2018, while its exports rose 5.8% to 6.48bn m3, the state statistics committee announced October 16.
The report does not provide details of imports but according to NGW’s survey and industrial sources, about 50.4% of imports came from Russia and the rest contractually from Turkmenistan.
Azerbaijan started importing Russian gas last November. Turkmenistan has been exporting gas to Azerbaijan through Iran for the last two years. Iran receives a 15% fee.
Over 78.5% of Azerbaijan’s gas exports went to Turkey and the rest went to Georgia, including a gas transit fee. Georgia takes 5% of Shah Deniz gas flows to Turkey as transit fee.
Azerbaijan also injected 3bn m³ gas in underground gas storage facilities, little changed since the September 2017 volume.
The country’s total gas production – including re-injections and flaring – reached 22.246bn m3 in nine months, 5.5% more than January-September 2017. Its sale gas output also increased by 2.5% to 13.834bn m3.
Azerbaijan re-injected more gas into the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli fields this year, enabling crude oil production to rise by 0.7% to 28.95mn metric tons. This reverses a six-year downward trend of falling oil output.
September is also the second consecutive month that Azerbaijan’s sales gas production has gone up, after falling for several years. Shah Deniz stage 2 was commissioned in late July, and will slowly ramp up to 16bn m3/yr in 2021.