Production at Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli hits 126m barrels in Jan-Sep 2021

4 November 2021 13:05 (UTC+04:00)

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By Ayya Lmahamad

The total production at Azerbaijan's Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of fields amounted to 126 million barrels in the first three quarters of 2021, BP Azerbaijan has said in its report.

During the reported period, the total production on the block of fields amounted to 461,000 barrels per day. Of this, the Chirag field accounted for 29,000 b/d, Central Azeri for 109,000 b/d, West Azeri for 115,000 b/d, East Azeri for 77,000 b/d, Deepwater Gunashli for 87,000 b/d and West Chirag for 44,000 b/d.

On September 18, 2021, the ACG field reached 4 billion barrels of total oil production since the start of its operations.

At the end of the third quarter, 136 wells were producing oil, while 30 wells were used for water and eight for gas injection. In addition, ACG completed seven oil producer and three injector wells.

Moreover, during the reported period, ACG delivered 2.2 billion cubic meters, or an average of 8 million cubic meters per day of ACG-associated gas to SOCAR, primarily at the Sangachal Terminal, and to SOCAR’s Oil Rocks facility. The remaining associated gas produced was re-injected for reservoir pressure maintenance.

As part of the ACG annual work program, two planned maintenance programs (turnaround - TAR) were successfully implemented on the ACG platforms this year – on West Azeri in the second quarter and on Chirag in the third quarter.

The company spent more than $398 million in operating expenditure and about $1.2 billion in capital expenditure on the ACG activities, in the first six quarters of the year.

Furthermore, in January-September 2021, the Shah Deniz field produced around 16 billion cubic meters of gas and 3 million tonnes of condensate.

The existing Shah Deniz facilities’ production capacity is currently about 70 million standard cubic meters of gas per day.

It was noted that during the reported period, the Shah Deniz field continued to provide deliveries of gas to markets in Azerbaijan (to Azerkontrakt), Georgia (to GOGC), Turkey (to BOTAS), and to BTC Company in multiple locations.

Likewise, in the first three quarters of the year, more than $1.5 billion were spent in operating expenditure and around $524 million in capital expenditure, the majority of which was associated with the Shah Deniz 2 project.

During the reported period, the Shah Deniz 2 project reached full production rates from the East South flank following its safe start-up in the second quarter of the year. As a result of the production ramp-up from the East South flank, in July 2021, the daily production rates of the Shah Deniz Bravo platform reached the Shah Deniz Alpha rates for the first time.

It should be noted that this year, Shah Deniz celebrates its 25th anniversary since the signing of the Shah Deniz Production Sharing Agreement (PSA).

BP opened its first office in Baku in June 1992 and has since then contributed to Azerbaijan’s oil and gas sector through operating projects such as Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG), Shah Deniz, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP).

The contract for the development of the ACG oil fields was signed on September 20, 1994, and entered force in December. The contract for the development of the ACG block was extended to 2050 in September 2017.

The shareholders in the ACG project are BP (operator, 30.37 percent), SOCAR (25 percent), MOL (9.57 percent), INPEX (9.31 percent), Equinor (7.27 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), TPAO (5.73 percent), ITOCHU (3.65 percent), ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) (2.31 percent).

The contract on the development of the Shah Deniz gas field was signed in 1996. Shareholders of Shah Deniz project are: BP (operator, 28.8 percent), TPAO (19 percent), AzSD (10 percent), SGC Upstream (6.7 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