OREANDA-NEWS. January 21, 2010. The Gazprom Headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company’s Management Committee, and Rovnag Abdullayev, President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).

The meeting addressed the issues relevant to the launch of Azerbaijani natural gas supplies to Russia for the first time in the history of cooperation between the countries.

The parties highly appreciated the agreements, which were successfully implemented, and pointed out that Gazprom and SOCAR would continue gradually developing the energy dialogue between Russia and Azerbaijan.

Alexey Miller reiterated the specific feature of the existing contract – no upper limit for the amount of Azerbaijani gas purchase and confirmed Gazprom’s readiness to purchase as much gas as SOCAR would be able to supply.

As a main result of the meeting, the parties agreed that during the current year Gazprom would purchase twice as much Azerbaijani gas as had been initially planned – 1 billion cubic meters instead of 500 million, in 2011 the supply volume will be doubled again up to some 2 billion cubic meters.

Background

On October 14, 2009 Gazprom and SOCAR signed a purchase and sale contract for Azerbaijani natural gas. As early as on January 1, 2010 Azerbaijani gas deliveries to Russia started via the Shirvanovka gas metering station.