The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom signed a supplement to the agreement on gas supplies. Under the document, Azerbaijan will increase gas export to Russia to 2 bn cubic meters per year since 2011 and over 2 billion cubic meters per year since 2012, Trend News reports.

The agreement was signed during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s official visit to Azerbaijan.

“At today’s meeting with our Azerbaijani colleagues, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev, we analyzed the course of executing the gas supply contract for January-August this year, opportunities for the development of our relations and agreed on a new increase in purchase volumes. The document fully complies with our basic contract, which has no upper ceiling for the Azerbaijani gas supplies volume. The territorial proximity, the lack of transit zones and the availability of an existing pipeline infrastructure makes the expansion of the Azerbaijan- Russia gas cooperation more commercially viable option for both partners,” the source quotes Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.

According to SOCAR, the company exported more than 494.6 million cubic meters of gas to Russia in January-July. Russia received over 66.4 million cubic meters of gas in July compared to 81.54 million cubic meters in June.