‘‘Zerkalo’’: Azerbaijani oil production declines despite the taken measures
Despite the taken measures, the oil production rate in Azerbaijan keeps on declining. It is a quite negative trend for Azerbaijan, taking into account the huge share of the Azerbaijani export, which is based on oil and petroleum products, writes Azerbaijani newspaper “Zerkalo.”
According to the article, the oil production in Azerbaijan for 2014 is projected at 41 million tons, which is 2,6% less than the results of 2013.
“Based on the results of 2013 the government predicts that the oil production in Azerbaijan will be projected at 42,1 million tons. The production overview for 2014 will be 41 million tons of oil,” reported the information source of the government to “Interfax-Azerbaijan” news agency.
The author of the article notes that oil production decline leads to the decrease of crude oil pump from export pipelines. The ongoing situation is the following: the entire volume of crude oil can be pumped only by one oil pipeline. Moreover, there will still be “space” for transporting additional volumes.
“The oil pumping volume through Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from January to July of 2013 was 17 million 739,955 thousand tons, which is by 0,9% less than the indicator of the same period the previous year,” writes the “Zerkalo” with reference to “Interfax-Azerbaijan.”
“2 million 559,379 thousand tons of Azerbaijani oil was transported by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in July, while 223 million 191,769 thousand was transported since the beginning of exploitation of the given pipeline on June 4, 2006 (approximately - “IF”) to August 1 of the current year,” informs the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan.
Oil volume in Azerbaijan has started to decline since 2011. While around 50,8 million tons of oil was pumped in 2010, the volume was reduced to 10.8% and 45,4 million tons in 2011. The volume of oil production declined to 5,3% and 43 million tons in 2012. Another 2,2% decrease was recorded during the five months of 2013.
According to the official data, the volume of commercial gas production in 2012 equaled to 17,2 billion cubic meters. This number is by 5,4% more than in 2011. However, the state structures of Azerbaijan didn’t provide any information about the production of commercial gas in 2011. According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, gas production volume in the country declined by 1,7% during the first term of 2013.