Total volume of oil produced from ACG in 2017 announced
By Sara Israfilbayova
Last year a total of 28.9 million tons of crude oil was produced from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block, which is located in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
The volume of production from ACG block in 2017 decreased by 6.8 percent, compared to 2016.
Over the past year, the country produced a total of 38.69 million tons of oil, and this is 5.7 percent less than in 2016. About 2.35 million tons of them accounted for Shah Deniz and 7.4 million tons for SOCAR.
A contract for development of ACG block of oil and gas fields was signed in 1994 for 30 years.
Thirteen companies from eight countries (Azerbaijan, the U.S., Great Britain, Russia, Turkey, Norway, Japan, Saudi Arabia) have participated in signing of the "Contract of the Century".
Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR and BP-operated Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) signed an agreement on future development of the ACG field in December 2016.
The agreement will cover the development of the field until 2050 and will add significant resource development potential. The document specifies the key commercial terms for the future development of the ACG field and enables the parties to conclude negotiations and finalize fully-termed agreements in the next few months.
The ACG field, which lies 120km off the coast of Azerbaijan, is considered to be the largest oilfield in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea.
The proven oil reserves of the block amounts to approximately 1 billion tons.
The production at the ACG block is forecasted at the level of 28 million tons (204.4 million barrels) of crude oil in 2018.
The Shah Deniz field was discovered in 1999. It is one of the world’s largest gas-condensate fields. It is located on the deep water shelf of the Caspian Sea, 70 km south-east of Baku, in water depths ranging from 50 m to 500 m.
Shah Deniz Stage 1 began operations in 2006. It has the capacity to produce around 10 billion cubic meters of gas per annum (bcma) and approximately 50,000 barrels a day of condensate.
The existing Shah Deniz facilities’ production capacity is currently 30.0 million standard cubic metres of gas per day or around 10.9bcma.
To date, about 88.5 billion cubic meters of gas and about 22 million tons of condensate have been extracted from the Shah Deniz field.
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