Oil production at Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli to reach 187mn barrels

24 January 2020 17:58 (UTC+04:00)

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By Rasana Gasimova

Azerbaijan’s oil production at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of fields is expected to amount to 186.7 million barrels in 2020, the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) has reported.

"In 2020, oil production at ACG is projected to reach 186.7 million barrels, which is 10.4 million barrels less than the plan for 2019. The decline will be associated with a decrease in oil production," SORAZ noted.

Earlier, BP-Azerbaijan said that oil production at the block of ACG fields in 2019 amounted to 26.237 million tons.

It was noted that in 2019, the average daily oil production from the ACG block amounted to 535,000 barrels. On December 26, 2019, the total oil production from this contract area reached 500 million tons.

Over the entire period since the start of development in November 1997, more than 45 billion cubic meters of associated gas were produced in the block.

Half a billion tonnes of oil produced from ACG have been transported primarily via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Western Route Export pipelines from the Sangachal terminal near Baku across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the world markets.

The initial ACG Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) was signed on September 20, 1994. This agreement provided for the development of the block until 2024.

In 2017, the ACG PSA was extended till the end of 2049. Under the new contract, Shareholders of the Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli development include BP with 30.37 percent of stakes, SOCAR (25 percent), American Corporation (9.57 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), ONGC Videsh (2.31 percent), Inpex (9.31 percent), ITOCHU Oil (3.65 percent), Statoil (7.27 percent) and TPAO (5.73 percent).

ACG currently has eight offshore platforms – six production platforms and two process, gas compression, water injection and utilities platforms. The next development project of ACG - the Azeri Central East (ACE) - is currently in the execute phase with first oil expected in 2023.

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