OREANDA-NEWS. December 22, 2009. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) aspires to raise the level of resource basis of country’s gas production by 50%.

SOCAR president Rovnag Abdullayev says that in the medium-term prospect they expect to obtain rise of proved gas reserves by 1 trillion cu m from current 2 trillion cu m.

“As a whole, according to our forecasts, for the next few years we will be able to increase our gas reserves by 1 trillion cu m. We do our best to achieve this objective,” he said.

The Company is drilling now an exploration well on offshore structure Umid. Exploration work on Babak structure is underway as well. Besides, SOCAR jointly with France’s Total starts works on the project of exploration and development of Absheron structure.

“Investors always displayed great interest to oil and gas sector of Azerbaijan. Currently SOCAR is realizing series of large projects. One of the Company’s major challenges is to increase oil and gas reserves. In this connection it focuses on development of earlier not developed structures and discovery of new ones,” Abdullayev said.

Due to exploration and drilling works at new structures SOCAR plans to bring country’s confirmed gas reserves up to 5 trillion cu m.