Azernews.Az

BAKU – Oil giant BP, which operates Azerbaijan’s major Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) fields in the Caspian Sea, plans to produce about 42.1 million tons of oil from the fields in 2010, the company said.

During the first three quarters BP Azerbaijan produced 30.8 million tons from the five ACG platforms, Rashid Javanshir, BP Azerbaijan President, told a press conference Tuesday.

In January-September ACG spent $1.149 million in capital expenditure and $270 million in operating expenditure. For the full year BP Azerbaijan expects to spend $1.584m and $587m respectively on ACG activities.

The agreement on tapping the ACG field, called "the Contract of the Century", was signed with 13 energy majors from eight countries in Baku in 1994. Production at the field began in November 1997.

Azerbaijani oil is exported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) main export pipeline to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. The Baku-Supsa pipeline stretching to the Black Sea coast of Georgia transports the country’s crude as well.

ACG participating interests are: BP (34.1%), Chevron (10.2%), SOCAR (10%), INPEX (10%), Statoil (8.6%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.8%), Devon (5.6%), ITOCHU (3.9%), and Hess (2.7%).