Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan’s estimated hydrocarbon reserves amount to 10 billion tons, an energy executive has said.

Khoshbakht Yusifzada, the state energy firm Socar’s First Vice-President, told the Caspian oil and gas conference in Baku on Thursday that Azerbaijan’s proven oil reserves total 2 billion tons, while gas reserves amount to 2.2 trillion cubic meters. Unconfirmed reserves stand at another 2bn tons and 3.8 trillion cubic meters, he said.

Yusifzada said the resource-rich South Caucasus republic produced 50.7 million tons of oil and 26 billion cubic meters of gas in 2010. Thus, the country’s oil production surged 5.6 times compared to 1997 and gas output increased 5.2 times compared to 2004, the Socar vice-president said.

Foreign investments to the tune of $36 billion have been made in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas industries so far.

The country produces most of its oil from the major Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli fields in the Caspian Sea and gas from its giant offshore field Shahdaniz. According to Yusifzada, ACG is currently producing 110,000 tons of oil and 38,000 cubic meters of gas per day.

"In total, 238 million tons of oil and 60bn cubic meters of gas have been produced since the ACG was commissioned [in 1997]. 111m tons of the volume is Azerbaijan’s profit oil."

As for the Shahdaniz project, Yusifzada said six production wells are currently operated at the field, which holds 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas and 240 million tons of condensate. Since the deposit was commissioned in 2006, it has produced 26bn cubic meters of gas and 7m tons of condensate, he said.

Yusifzada said Socar is operating 33 fields, including 13 offshore deposits. In 2010 alone, the company commissioned 85 wells, and a total of 1,500 wells are in operation.