Energy-rich Azerbaijan expects to boost oil and gas production this year and is seeking to expand its energy export markets, President Ilham Aliyev said Tuesday.

"This year we expect to extract 52 million [metric] tons of oil and 30 billion cubic meters of gas, three times more than Azerbaijan 's needs," Aliyev said at the opening of a conference on Caspian Sea oil and gas development.

"Extraction is now far greater than our export possibilities. However, we must make sure export capabilities equal extraction. To this end we need new markets or to widen already existing markets," Aliyev said.

Azerbaijan in 2009 extracted 50.4 million tons of oil and 23.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas, according to government figures.

Rich in oil and gas and strategically located between Russia and Iran , Azerbaijan has been courted by both Moscow and the West since gaining its independence with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union .

Backed by Western governments, companies such as BP PLC (BP.LN) have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the country's energy sector, building a corridor of oil and gas pipelines from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey to Europe , bypassing Russia .

Azerbaijan is seen as a crucial potential provider for the European Union's Nabucco pipeline project, a 3,300-kilometer (2,050-mile) pipeline between Turkey and Austria scheduled to be completed by 2014.

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