BP says oil production at ACG ahead of projected figures
By Aynur Karimova
This year’s volume of oil production at the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of oil and gas fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea remains ahead of the projected figures.
This was announced by BP’s Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Gordon Birrell on November 10, when he also told journalists that production figures for the first three quarters of 2015 were quite high.
“We expect that production for 2015 at the block will not be lower than last year,” Birrell said. “Current production figures are ahead of the forecasted ones.”
Earlier, SOCAR reported that since November 1997, some 380 million tons of oil have been produced at the ACG field, including 209 million tons of Azerbaijani profitable oil.
During the same period, the volume of associated gas produced at the ACG has reached 114 billion cubic meters, and daily production from this block of fields is 87,000 tons of oil and 33 million cubic meters of gas.
Also, some 26 million tons of oil and 10 billion cubic meters of associated gas were produced at the ACG field during the first 10 months of 2015, while some 17 million tons of oil account for Azerbaijani profitable oil.
Khoshbakht Yusifzade, the first vice-president of SOCAR, believes that total production at the ACG field will amount to 385 million tons by the end of 2015, which accounts for only 17 percent of the reserves within the block.
Azerbaijan's state oil fund SOFAZ, an entity that collects and manages Azerbaijan's oil and gas revenues, has earned $116.01 billion from 2001 to November 1, 2015 through the development of the ACG block of fields.
The contract for development of the ACG field was signed in 1994. The existing PSA contract for ACG expires in 2024.
It is expected that a new agreement between Azerbaijan’s energy giant SOCAR and its partners to develop the ACG block of oil and gas fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea will be signed by late 2015. In the new agreement, SOCAR will increase its share of revenues.
The shareholders of the project are BP (operator) - 35.78 percent, Chevron - 11.27 percent, Inpex - 10.96 percent, AzACG - 11.65 percent, Statoil - 8.56 percent, Exxon - 8 percent, TPAO - 6.75 percent, Itocu - 4.3 percent and ONGC - 2.72 percent.
--
Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz