Conference for oil and gas infrastructure in Caspian held in Azerbaijan

Bakuis hosting an international conference on gas infrastructure in
the Caspian region called Gas Infrastructure World Caspian-2010, APA
reports.

The deputy head of the oil and gas department of the Ministry of
Industry and Energy Eldar Shiriyev spoke about the oil and gas
projects being realized. He said that the presidents of Azerbaijan,
Romania and Georgia signed a declaration for the AGRI project
yesterday, which involves transport of Azerbaijani gas using gas
pipelines along the Black Sea coast and then to Romania.

The head of the gas exporting department of Azerbaijani State Oil
Company Kyamal Abbasov noted the importance of the Caspian region for
world energy supplies and the interest from Europe in buying
Azerbaijani gas. The company is considering several projects, in
particular the project of transporting Azerbaijani gas to Syria
through Turkey and the project of transporting liquefied Azerbaijani
gas to Bulgaria through the Black Sea. Hungary has already expressed
interest in the LNG project.

Abbasov said that in 2011 Azerbaijan plans to export 2 billion cubic m
of gas to Russia. He said that they are currently negotiating with
potential buyers in EU within the second phase of 'Shakhdeniz' and the
contract will be signed in October 2011.

At the conference they will discuss the role of the Caspian in
achieving long-term energy security, the increase of extraction,
infrastructure, logistics and transport, opportunities for cooperation
with national and international oil and gas companies, development of
gas export via transit countries, and investments into the Caspian
region.