Azerbaijan restarts gas supply to Turkey - BP-Azerbaijan
BAKU. June 13 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan has restarted export of gas from the Shah Deniz field to Turkey, BP-Azerbaijan told Interfax.
"Botas informed us about the completion of repair operations and testing [on gas transport infrastructure], after which we restarted gas supply to Turkey on Saturday. Supply is underway at usual volumes," a company representative said.
Azerbaijan temporarily halted gas supply from the Shah-Deniz field to Turkey on May 30 2012 upon the request of Turkish company Botas.
According to Turkish media reports, the reason for the temporary shutdown in supply of Azerbaijani gas through the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline had been an explosion at Botas' gas transportation infrastructure near the town of Sar?kam?s. This infrastructure distributes Azerbaijani gas. The gas pipeline itself is fully intact.
The South Caucasus Pipeline, also known as the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline, is 690 kilometers long (442 km in Azerbaijan and 248 km in Turkey) and was commissioned at the end of 2006. The pipeline was designed to deliver Azerbaijani gas from the Shah Deniz field's Stage-1.
Shah Deniz's participants include BP (operator, 25.5%), Statoil (25.5%), the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) (10%), Lukoil (10%), NICO (10%), Total (10%) and TPAO (9%). Agreements on gas sale between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia were signed in first stage of the project.
