Azerbaijan boosts natural gas production, export in 2020
By Ayya Lmahamad
Azerbaijan increased its gas production while decreasing oil production in the first seven months of 2020.
The volume of Azerbaijan’s natural gas production increased by 10 percent year-on-year in the first seven months of 2020, the Energy Ministry’s press service reported on August 18.
Some 22.3 billion cubic meters of gas were produced during the reporting period, which is by 2 billion cubic meters more than in the same period last year.
Out of total volume of natural gas production, 7 billion cubic meters were produced from Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field, and 11 billion cubic meters from the country’s largest gas filed Shah Deniz in the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company (SOCAR) accounted for 4.3 billion cubic meters of total volume of gas production in 2020.
In the reporting period, the country’s gas exports also increased by 16.7 percent amounting to 7.7 billion cubic meters.
During the reporting period, Turkey exported 6.3 billion cubic meters of gas, which is by 24 percent more than in the same period of 2019. It should be noted that, 2.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas were transported to Turkey via TANAP (Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline), which is part of the South Gas Corridor. Thus, about 6.3 billion cubic meters of gas was transported to Turkey via TANAP from June 30, 2018 to August 1, 2020.
Georgia accounted to 1.4 billion cubic meters of gas exports from Azerbaijan.
Oil Production
Azerbaijan produced 20.5 million tons of oil, including condensate, in January- July 2020, which is by 1.4 million less than in the same period in 2019.
Out of total volume of oil production, Azeri- Chirag-Guneshli accounted for 14 million tons of oil, while Shah Deniz accounts for 2.2 million tons of oil, including condensate. SOCAR’s oil production amounted to 4.3 million tons.
Likewise, Azerbaijan exported 16.9 million tons of oil, including condensate, during the reporting period, which is by 1.4 million tons, or 7.6 percent, less than in the same period last year. The consortium accounts for 16.2 million tons of oil export, while SOCAR for 0.7 million tons.
It should be noted that, since the commissioning of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and Shah Deniz fields, 543.3 million tons of oil, including condensate, had been produced and 542.7 million tons were exported.
During this period, 172 billion cubic meters of gas was produced from Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field and 127.8 billion cubic meters from Shah Deniz field. In addition, since the commissioning of the Shah Deniz field, 84.7 billion cubic meters of gas had been exported .
Additionally, by the end of seven months of 2020, the volume of oil processing in the country amounted to 3.5 million tons, which is by 144,000 tons less than in the same period last year.
Earlier it was reported that, investments to Azerbaijan’s oil and gas sector increased by 22.9 percent in January-July 2020, compared to the same period last year, amounting to AZN 3.4 billion ($2.0bn).
The contract for the development of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields was signed in 1994 extended to 2050 in September 2017.
The shareholders in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli project are BP (operator, 30.37 percent), SOCAR (25 percent), American Chevron (9.57 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), Indian ONGC (2.31 percent), Japanese Inpex Corp. (9.31 percent), ITOCHU Oil (3.65 percent), Norwegian Statoil (7.27 percent) and Turkish TPAO (5.73 percent).
The contract on development of Shah Deniz gas field was signed in 1996. Shareholders of Shah Deniz project are: BP (operator, 28.8 percent), TPAO (19 percent), SOCAR (16.7 percent), Petronas (15.5 percent), LUKOIL (10 percent) and NICO (10 percent).
---
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz