Azerbaijan to double gas supplies to Russia

AZERBAIJAN: Azerbaijan will double gas supplies to Russia in 2010 to one billion cubic metres, the resource-rich Causasus republic's energy firm SOCAR said on Saturday.

"In 2010 we will supply one billion cubic metres of gas to Russia," SOCAR's president Rovnag Abdullayev told journalists in Baku. Last October SOCAR and Russia's gas giant Gazprom signed a contract to begin the pumping of 500 million cubic metres of gas annually to Russia as Moscow seeks to extend its grip on potential European energy supplies in the hydrocarbons-rich Caspian Sea.

Azerbaijan last year produced 22.8 billion cubic metres of natural gas, according to government figures, and it expects to nearly double gas production to 40 billion cubic metres by 2015-2020.

Baku,Sunday, AFP