BAKU, January 22 (RIA Novosti) - A second well is likely to be commissioned at Azerbaijan's largest natural gas and condensate field in late January, a spokesman for the ex-Soviet country's energy ministry said Monday.
Gas reserves in the Shah-Deniz field, located off Azerbaijan's Caspian coast, have been estimated at between 50 and 100 billion cubic meters. Gas from the field will be pumped down the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum pipeline via Georgia to Turkey, and on to European countries.
The project came on stream on December 15, 2006. Idris Rzabekov, the head of the ministry's oil and gas department, said the third well is to be commissioned in March, and the fourth in June.
Seven companies, including BP, Norway's Statoil, France's Total and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), signed a production sharing agreement on Shah-Deniz in 1996.