Azerbaijan natural gas project

Azerbaijan has started exploiting a new project at Shah Deniz gas field, stated BP Azerbaijan president Rashid Javanshir. According to him, this will need an extra USD 20 billion investment and that would secure the distortion of an extra 16 billion cubic metres of natural gas before sending it to Europe. Two more modern platforms should be erected for this purpose and a special network of pipelines will be connecting wells drilled underwater. The project should be properly finished and ready to start functioning from 2017. As a result of this development, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum gas pipeline capacity should be increased threefold. Extra technical facilities will be built for this reason in Georgia and in Azerbaijan. There are discussions and studies of the possible construction of extra pipelines for transporting excess natural gas to Europe. Turkey is a major future partner in terms of transit and there is a high possibility that Georgia will also benefit from this project.