Interfax reported that the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic aims to commission two new wells at the Garadagh gas field by 2012.

SOCAR said "Drilling work is adding to the number of wells to inject gas into the Garadagh underground reservoir. Wells #473 and 474 are being drilled and should be commissioned by the end of this year."

The site has 219 wells overall, 38 of them operating.

The company also said wells #631 and 632 had been commissioned at the Kalmaz field to pump gas into storage this year and that 110 of 180 wells there were operational.

Mr Rovnag Abdullayev SOCAR chief has been quoted as saying that Azerbaijan would have over 3.5 billion cubic meters of gas in underground storage by 2012.

Underground reservoirs contained 3.1 billion cubic meters of gas in 2010 including gas carried over from 2009 with 1.924 billion cubic meters pumped in during in 2010 itself.

The Garadagh underground reservoir is 25 kilometres southeast of Baku and was commissioned in 1954.

(Sourced from Interfax)