The production of natural gas at the Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea has been indefinitely suspended, Rovnaq Abdullayev, president of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR), said Tuesday, according to the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.
"A string of technical issues has emerged. They are related to producing gas from the first well of the field," he said. "In this connection, we are unable to produce gas in the first days of 2007 and so far it is unknown when the difficulties will be tackled."
Xosbaxt Yusifzada, first vice-president of SOCAR, said that "a gas leak has been 800-900 meters at the first well of the Shah Deniz field". "Work is under way to resolve the problem and a number of options are being considered," he said.
The BP Azerbaijan company, which is the operator of the Shah Deniz project, has also confirmed that there are technical problems with the first well. The reserves of gas and condensate at the field are estimated at 178 billion cubic meters and 34 million tonnes respectively at the first stage.
The industrial production of gas at the Shah Deniz field began on 14 December. It was expected that Georgia will receive gas from this Azerbaijani offshore field as early as on 20 December. By the end of 2006 Azerbaijan was to supply Georgia with 10 million cubic meters. of gas.
The total reserves of the field exceed 1 trillion cubic meters of gas and 200 million tonnes of condensate.
(ITAR-TASS, 26/12/2006)