Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Energy giant BP developing Azerbaijan's biggest oilfields has announced the volume of oil and gas production from the Caspian fields in 2012.

In a report, the company said the Azerbaijani offshore gas condensate field Shah Deniz produced about 7.73 billion cubic meters of gas and 2.0 million tons (about 16.1 million barrels) of condensate in 2012.

According to the report, the field produced about 21.1 million cubic meters of gas and about 44,100 barrels of condensate per day.

During the reporting period, the operating expenditure on Shah Deniz was $269 million and capital expenditure nearly $1.1 billion.

It is planned to spend over $222 million in operating expenditure and over $2.6 billion in capital expenditure on Shah Deniz activities in 2013.

Since late 2006 till the end of 2012, about 37.6 billion standard cubic meters of gas and 10.1 million tons (80 million barrels) of condensate extracted from the Shah Deniz field were exported to the markets, the report says.

Shah Deniz Stage 1 peak production is expected at 9 billion cubic meters of gas and 50,000 barrels of condensate.

Reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The contract to develop the offshore field was signed in June 1996. Shareholders of the project are: BP (operator) and Statoil with 25.5 percent each, NICO, Total, Lukoil and SOCAR with 10 percent each, and TPAO with 9 percent.

Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil block

In 2012, BP and its partners produced on average 664,400 barrels of oil per day (more than 243 million barrels or about 32.9 million tons in total) from Azerbaijan's block of oil fields Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG).

A total of 65 oil wells were producing, while 29 wells were used for injection at the ACG fields in 2012.

According to the BP report, Chirag had 14 wells (10 oil producers and 4 water injectors), producing on average 74,440 barrels per day. Central Azeri had 20 wells, including 14 oil production wells, producing on average 158,430 barrels per day. West Azeri had 21 wells, including 16 oil production wells, producing on average 190,54 barrels per day. East Azeri had 18 wells (14 oil producers and 4 water injectors), producing on average 134,000 barrels per day. Deepwater Guneshli had 21 wells (11 oil producers and 10 water injectors), extracting on average 107,000 barrels per day.

Equity participation in the contract on ACG is distributed as follows: BP (operator) - 35.78 percent, Chevron - 11.27 percent, Inpex - 10.96 percent, AzACG - 11.65 percent, Statoil - 8.56 percent, Exxon - 8 percent, TPAO - 6.75 percent, Itochu - 4.3 percent, and Hess 2.72 percent. Hess sold its share to Indian ONGC and the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013.