Azerbaijan Gas Demand Rises
Azeri gas demand hit an historic record on November 23, reaching 32.994mn m3, about a third more than the same day of 2018. Demand in January-September reached 8.181bn m³, which is 9% growth year-on-year.
Socar told NGW that it is prepared for the winter. “Underground gas storage reached a historic record of 3.036bn m3 in 2019, of which 2.266 bn m3 were injected during April-October 2019. Gas withdrawal from the Karabag and Galmaz storage facilities started on November 15 and 18 respectively,” Socar spokesman Ibrahim Ahmadov said.
The storage volume growth is also due to higher than expected gas production from Shah Deniz (SD) 1 and 2, the major Caspian gas field. The government had planned to produce 17.389bn m3 gas from Shah Deniz this year, but Socar vice president for field development Yashar Latifov recently told NGW that the volume now is expected to reach 19bn m3 this year, about 7bn m3 more than 2018.
Next year, Baku is hoping to produce 26.995bn m3 of gas for sale, up from last year's 19.2bn m3 respectively.
Export demand might have been limited by the availability of cheap LNG, reaching the Greek, Turkish and other import terminals in the region. But Azerbaijan's exports have risen. The vice president for oil and gas transportation at state-run Socar Rahman Gurbanov told NGW October 22 that exports to Turkey rose 30.3% year-on-year to 6.53bn m3, of which 1.8bn m3 was SD2 gas, through the South Caucasus/Tanap lines. SD-2 deliveries to Turkey soared in 3Q, equalling the export volume for the first six months of this year. Azerbaijan also delivered 1.705bn m3 to Georgia in the first nine months, up 26.6%.
The country’s gross gas production increased by 17.4% year-on-year to 25.99bn m3 in nine months, of which 72% was sale gas.
Baku hopes to boost energy efficiency to maximise exports and curb the domestic demand growth in coming years. The power sector acccunts for 45% of the country’s total gas demand and in the first three quarters of 2019, gas generated 17.5 TWh.
Oleksandr Antonenko, the energy efficiency coordinator at the International Energy Charter told a meeting in Baku that the country could save 2bn m3/yr by energy efficiency measures.