Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan’s major Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block of fields in the Caspian Sea produced 19 million tons (140.4 million barrels) of oil in the first half of 2011, according to oil giant BP, which operates the fields.

Average ACG production made up 775,700 barrels per day, the company said in its outlook for the first half-year.

In 2010, BP produced from ACG 40.6 million tons of oil (300.4 million barrels) compared to more than 40.3 million tons in 2009.

During the first half of 2011, ACG spent $325.3 million in operating expenditure and $874.9 million in capital expenditure. For the full year, it is planned to spend about $628 million in operating expenditure and $1.998 million in capital expenditure on ACG activities.

Last year, the operating costs on ACG amounted to $426 million and capital expenditure - $1.648 billion.

The ACG fields produce most of Azerbaijan’s oil. The BP-operated Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which runs through Georgia and Turkey, transports oil extracted at the fields to world markets.

ACG participating interests are: BP (operator - 35.83%), Socar (11.65%), Chevron (11.27%), Inpex (10.96%), Statoil (8.56%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.75%), Itochu (4.3%), and Hess (2.72%).