Russia increasing Azeri gas import

On September 3, 2010 Azerbaijan and Russia signed an agreement to increase the amount of Azeri gas bought by Russia for 2011-12. Russian and Azeri presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Ilham Aliyev attended the signing ceremony. According to this agreement in 2011 Russia will purchase up to 2 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Azerbaijan. GasProm head Alexey Miller stated that Azerbaijan is prepared to increase the gas supply further. “The contract that has been signed is a unique document; it does not fix an upper limit for the sales volume… the signed document envisages two increases bringing the total in 2012 to more than 2 billion cubic metres," stated Miller. Ilham Aliyev told the Russian president that there is the capacity to further increase Azeri natural gas exports to Russia.