(Read the full article on Eurasianet.com)

A contract for gas exports from Azerbaijan to Turkey has quietly expired, leaving Baku without the bulk of income from its largest gas consumer while the flow is halted, Eurasianet reported.

BP, which heads the consortium operating Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field from which the gas is produced and sold to Turkey, confirmed to Eurasianet that flow halted on April 17 after the contract expired, but that talks on renewal “have been going on for some time, and are continuing.”

Under the contract, signed in 2001, Turkey’s state gas importer Botas was importing up to 6.6 billion cubic meters of gas per year from the Azerbaijan Gas Supply Company (AGSC), a company representing the consortium of six companies that developed the Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea, Eurasianet said.

Gas sold under this contract arrives in Turkey through the South Caucasus or Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipelines via Georgia.