Gas removal begins at Shah Deniz

Workers began extracting gas from the 400 billion cubic-meter field began as the state energy companies of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey were negotiating to divide up the field's next year's quotas between the three countries.

The field's peak capacity is expected to be 8.4 billion cubic meters of gas and 2 million tons of gas condensate per year, Azerbaijan's state oil company said in a statement.

According to agreements reached in 2001, Turkey is to receive 6.6 million cubic meters of gas per year and the rest is to be divided between Azerbaijan and Georgia.

However, Turkey has agreed next year to cede some of its gas in favor of those two countries, eager to forego expensive Russian gas deliveries. Experts have been holding talks on dividing up the quotas since Thursday. The talks are still ongoing and no details have been disclosed. The Associated Press

/MSN/