Azerbaijan boosts natural gas production, export in Jan-Oct 2020

21 November 2020 10:00 (UTC+04:00)

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By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan increased gas production and export while reducing oil production and export in January-October 2020.

Gas production and export

During the reported period, Azerbaijan increased natural gas output by 5.4 percent or 1.6 billion cubic meters, compared to the same period of 2019. Thus, in the first ten months of 2020, the country has produced 30.5 billion cubic meters of gas.

Of the total natural gas production, Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli accounted for 9.7 billion cubic meters of gas, while Shah Deniz accounted for 14.7 billion cubic meters of gas. SOCAR produced 6.1 billion cubic meters of gas during this period.

Moreover, during the reported period, gas sales abroad amounted to 10.8 billion cubic meters, which is an increase by 15 percent compared to the corresponding period of 2019.

Turkey accounted for 9 billion cubic meters of gas exports, which is by 20.9 percent more compared to the same period last year. It should be noted that during the reported period 3.7 billion cubic meters of gas was exported to Turkey through TANAP. In addition, 7.1 billion cubic meters of gas has been transported to Turkey via TANAP from June 30, 2018 to October 1, 2020.

Georgia accounted for 1.8 billion cubic meters of gas export in the reported period.

Oil production and export

During the first ten months of the year, the country produced 28.8 million tons of oil, including condensate, which is a decrease by 2.3 million tons compared to the same period of 2019.

Of the total oil production, Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli accounted for 19.7 million tons of oil, while Shah Deniz for 2.9 million tons of condensate. SOCAR’s oil and condensate production amounted to 6.2 million tons.

Furthermore, some 23.8 million tons of oil, including condensate, were exported during the period of January-October 2020, which is by 8.5 percent or 2.2 million tons less than in the corresponding period of 2019.

It should be noted that 22.6 million tons of oil, including condensate, were exported by the consortium and 1.2 million tons by SOCAR.

Likewise, some 1.6 billion tons of oil, including condensate, were produced and 549.2 million tons of oil, including condensate, exported from Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and Shah Deniz since its commissioning till November 1. Some 520.1 million tons of oil, including condensate, were produced at Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of fields and 29.6 million tons of oil at Shah Deniz.

Additionally, some 174.7 billion cubic meters of gas was produced from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of fields and 131.5 billion cubic meters from the Shah Deniz field. Since commissioning, some 87.6 billion cubic meters of gas were exported from Shah Deniz field.

By the end of ten months of 2020, the volume of oil processing in the country amounted to 4.8 million tons, which is by 246,000 tons less than in the same period last year.

The contract for the development of the 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).

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Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad