BAKU, May 19 (Reuters) - Azeri state energy company SOCAR'sexports of natural gas are set to fall to 2.6 billion cubicmetres (bcm) in 2014 from 2.84 bcm last year on lower volumes toRussia, a SOCAR official said on Monday.
There will be lower exports from gas fields where SOCARoperates alone, but not from Shah Deniz, where it works withforeign companies including BP and Statoil,Kamal Abbasov, SOCAR's gas export department's deputy head, toldReuters.
"The decline in gas exports this year is linked to the factthat we will reduce gas exports to Russia to 1 bcm from 1.4 bcmlast year," Abbasov said.
Azerbaijan suspended gas shipments to Russia on Jan. 13citing maintenance work on a motorway between the Azeri capitalBaku and the Russian border adjacent to the pipeline.
It has not yet resumed Russian shipments but it is ready tofulfil its obligations, SOCAR's president said last week.
Prior to the suspension, Azeri gas supplies to Russiaamounted to 3 million cubic metres a day, a small fraction ofRussia's total gas consumption.
Abbasov said SOCAR would export 0.4 bcm of gas to Iran, thesame as last year, while exports to neighbouring Georgia wouldrise to 1.2 bcm this year from 1.04 bcm.
SOCAR exported 36 million cubic metres of gas to Russia inthe first four months of 2014, down from 684 bcm in the sameperiod last year.
It exported 575 bcm to Georgia, up from 419 bcm, and sent151 bcm to Iran versus 149 bcm in the same period a yearearlier.
SOCAR produced 7.309 bcm of gas in 2013 while Azerbaijan'stotal gas production was 29.2 bcm. It plans to produce 27-28 bcmof gas this year. (Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; Writing by Margarita Antidze;editing by Jason Neely)
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