Azerbaijan and Turkey to discuss gas deals in late August

Azerbaijan and Turkey plan to hold a new round of talks on gas on
August 26, head of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic
(SOCAR) Rovnag Abdullayev said, Trend reports.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Baku in late July
to view development of Shah Deniz. He had negotiations with Botas
(Turkey) and reach a set of deals.

Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan Khulusi Kylydzh said that the sides
plan to reach a transit deal to transport Azerbaijani gas to Europe in
late September. 10 billion cubic meters will go through Turkey to
Europe.

The second stage of Shah Deniz development will be the main gas
source, it will be launched in 2017.

The head of the SOCAR Investment Department, Vagif Aliyev, said that
they reached an agreement on most points of the contract, including
transit payments, gas volumes and transporting variants. There are
still legal disagreements.

Shah Deniz-2 may produce 25-30 billion cubic meters of gas. The field
has about 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.

The Shah Deniz contract was signed on June 4, 1996. Its shareholders
are BP (operator) - 25.5%, Statoil - 25.5%, NICO - 10%, Total - 10%,
Lukoil - 10%, TPAO - 9%, SOCAR - 10%.

Turkey will purchase 6.6 billion cubic meters of gas from Shah Deniz
annually and 6 billion from the second stage of development.