Baku. 16 October. REPORT.AZ/ The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan managed to stabilize oil production and dramatically increase natural gas extraction through raising the volume of drilling works in Q3, 2018, Report informs citing the company's statement.
By the information, within the quarter SOCAR produced 1.9 million tonnes of oil and 1.67 billion cubic meters of natural gas, relevantly up by 1.5% and 11% over the same period of the last year. In general, in nine months of 2018 countrywide production made 29 million tonnes of oil and 22 billion cubic meters of gas. Oil production in the country has risen by 0.8% over the same period of the last year and gas extraction by 4.5%.
Within the quarter SOCAR carried out drilling works extending to over 42,000 meters, up 43% from the last year. Along with increasing the volume of drilling works for stabilizing production on SOCAR, company also resumes production from old oil wells.
In the first nine months of this year Azerbaijan imported 1.59 billion cubic meters of gas and exported 6.48 billion cubic meters of gas. Import has risen by 22.6% and export by 5.8% year-on-year. In the first nine months of the year SOCAR exported 871.8 million cubic meters of gas, a 0.5% growth over the same period of the last year.
Notably, SOCAR directs all volumes of gas produced through its own capacities to the domestic market. Gas purchased from the third parties is mainly directed to export and brings additional revenues to Azerbaijan. SOCAR gas reservoirs currently stock more than 3 billion cubic meters of gas for winter season.
In the third quarter of the year SOCAR exported 6 million tonnes of crude oil, a growth of 9.3% over the same period of the last year. In the same period the company sold 465,800 tonnes of products of oil refining and petrochemical industry abroad, up 43% over the previous year.