BP announces oil and gas production in Azerbaijan
By Aynur Jafarova
British BP made the results of the first nine months of 2013 public on November 13.
According to the company's report, the giant Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (AGC) block of oil and gas fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea produced about 24.5 million tons (181 million barrels) of oil.
The daily production in the ACG fields was an average of 663,200 barrels per day (bpd), BP said.
In the first nine months of 2013, the volume of operational expenditures and capital expenditures within the project reached $574 and $2,039 million respectively, the report said.
The company is expected to spend about $758 million on operating expenditure, and $2,514 million on capital expenditure for ACG activities.
By the end of the third quarter, a total of 72 oil wells were producing oil, while 33 wells were used for injection in the ACG field, the report said.
BP also said that ACG associated gas flaring was 2.9 percent at the end of September 2013, which showed a 41 percent decrease from 2012.
As a result of the measures taken for further improvement, the rate of ACG associated gas utilization has reached about 98 percent, which is in line with the best European standards.
"As the operator of ACG, BP will continue its efforts to minimize associated gas flaring while maintaining safe operations," the report said.
During the first nine months of 2013, BP delivered around 5.9 million cubic meters of ACG associated gas to SOCAR on a daily basis, which made a total of 1.62 billion cubic meters.
In the reported period, ACG delivered seven oil production wells, one gas injector, and two water injector wells.
Furthermore, during the first nine months of 2013, the giant Shah Deniz gas condensate field in the Caspian Sea produced about 7.3 billion cubic meters of gas and 1.85 million tons (about 14.6 million barrels) of condensate, the company said.
"Since the start of Shah Deniz production in late 2006 till the end of the third quarter of 2013, about 44.8 billion standard cubic meters of Shah Deniz gas, and about 94.6 million barrels (11.9 million tons) of Shah Deniz condensate was exported to the markets," the report said.
According to the report, the volume of operating expenditures and capital expenditures in the first nine months of 2013 amounted to $143 and $1,364 million respectively. This year, the company plans to spend around $222 million on operating expenditure and about $2,191 million on capital expenditure for Shah Deniz activities.
Also, during the first nine months of 2013, BTC exported about 186 million barrels (about 24.7 million tons) of crude oil.
The BTC pipeline currently carries mainly ACG oil and Shah Deniz condensate from Azerbaijan. In addition, crude oil from Turkmenistan continues to be transported.
During the first nine months of 2013, South Caucasus Pipeline's daily average throughput was about 12.4 million cubic meters of gas or 75,376 barrels of oil equivalent per day, the report said.