Energy development on Azeri agenda

BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 27 (UPI) -- The energy policy of Azerbaijan centers on plans to modernize the resource transit sector as part of national domestic and foreign agendas, officials said.

Azeri Energy Minister Natig Aliyev told a delegation at a Caspian oil and gas conference in Baku that his country would focus its domestic energy policy on production and development, the Trend Capital news agency reports.

"One of key factors of increasing production is to raise capacity of the existing pipelines and opportunities of constructing new ones," he said.

Azerbaijan boasts some of the most lucrative oil and gas fields in the world. The offshore Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea, one of the largest gas-field discoveries in decades, has more than 15 trillion cubic feet in estimated reserves.

Production at the offshore Caspian Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field, meanwhile, passed 1 billion barrels of crude in early April.

Several planned or operational oil and gas pipeline networks originate from the Caspian region, notably the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the world's second longest.

Aliyev said the need to expand the regional energy transit sector outweighs any concerns raised over the environmental impact of growing developments.

"The statements about environmental threats are groundless," he said.