Today.Az » Business » Azeri official: "Turkey won't take Shah Deniz gas this year"
06 July 2006 [20:40] - Today.Az
Turkey will miss an agreed deadline for starting to import natural gas from Azerbaijan, an Azerbaijan government official said Thursday.

"It's already clear that Turkey won't be able to accept gas from the Shah Deniz gas field within the agreed timeframe - that is, this autumn - because construction of the pipeline from the Turkish-Georgian border to Erzerum won't be competed on time," the official said.

According to Dow Jones, he added that the earliest realistic date for deliveries to start would be spring 2007.

The official noted that the pipeline from the field to the Azerbaijan-Georgia border is already complete and conducting preliminary, operational tests.

Shah Deniz, one of the largest gas fields in the region, is being developed under a Production Sharing Agreement by a consortium led by BP PLC (BP), which owns 25.5%. The other consortium partners are Statoil ASA (STO), with 25.5%, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, LUKAgip, NICO and Total SA (TOT), all with 10% each, and TPAO, with 9%.

Deliveries from Shah Deniz to Turkey are scheduled to plateau at 6.6 billion cubic meters a year, running from 2007 to 2018.

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