Azernews.Az

By Gunay Camal

Total has stepped up the work to start gas production at Azerbaijan’s offshore Absheron field, French oil and gas giant’s representative, Karine Lafontaine said in Baku.

Lafontaine announced about this in a meeting with management of the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping CJSC on June 9, Trend reported.

She went on to say that winner of a tender announced by Total for laying submarine pipes and cables to the Absheron field will be known this July.

Total and the tender’s winner will inspect the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping’s vessels that are suitable for the project, Lafontaine said.

Chairman of the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping CJSC Rauf Valiyev reminded that currently the company’s flotilla includes about 300 vessels, and expressed confidence in fruitful cooperation with Total.

Earlier the company announced that it will create a new joint venture with Azerbaijan's State Oil Company SOCAR on the Absheron field development project.

SOCAR and Total signed a framework agreement in late 2016 on the main contractual and commercial principles regulating the program for the first phase of development of the Absheron field.

At the first stage, the field development includes drilling one well at a depth of 450 meters. The extraction will amount to 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year, which will fully flow to the domestic market of Azerbaijan, as well as significant amounts of condensate. First gas could be produced as early as in 2019.

SOCAR geologists assume that the reserves of the Absheron field amounts to 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million tons of condensate.

Total is the operator of Absheron with a 40 percent interest alongside SOCAR (40 percent) and ENGIE (20 percent).Moreover, Total possesses a 5 percent share in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline project.

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