Turan Information Agency, Azerbaijani Opposition June 7, 2017 Wednesday Start of Karabakh Development Announced Baku/07.06.17/ Turan: SOCAR plans to start exploitation of the Karabakh field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea in 2021, the head of the Azneft production association (SOCAR's mining entity) Dashgyn Iskandarov told the Caspian Energy magazine. "Currently, options for the development of the Karabakh deposit are being considered. Its commissioning is expected in 2021. Karabakh is a very rich oil field, whose reserves are estimated at 16 million tons," Iskandarov said. Earlier, with reference to the manager of the Norwegian company Statoil for Azerbaijan, Karsten Stoltenberg, it was reported that there is an opportunity for long-term cooperation between Statoil and Azerbaijan over the fields of Dan Ulduzu, Karabakh and Ashrafi. He said that the Norwegian company began work on exploration of these areas in 2012. A corresponding agreement was signed in 2014 and as a result of applying modern technologies results were obtained, which are more significant in comparison with the results of studies of the late 90s. In the course of the research, recoverable and existing oil and gas reserves were discovered in a much larger volume than in the original indicators. * The Karabakh field, whose recoverable reserves are also estimated at 28 Bcm of gas, is located 130 km east of Baku. The depth of the sea in the area is 180 meters.