Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijan’s crude and NGL’s production will amount to 0.9 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2015, OPEC’s newly published World Oil Outlook 2014 report said.

OPEC predicts that in 2020 the country’s crude and NGL’s production will drop to average 0.8 million bpd and will stay at this level in 2025. Azerbaijan’s production will drop further to 0.7 million barrels per day in 2030, 2035 and 2040.

“Azerbaijan’s largest hydrocarbon basins (South Caspian and Kura) are located offshore in the Caspian Sea. After a decade of strong growth that lifted total liquids output to 1.07 million bpd in 2010, Azerbaijan has witnessed a strong production decline,” OPEC’s report said.

OPEC expects the country’s liquids supply to drop to around 0.87 million bpd in 2014, which is explained mainly by the delays and on-going production problems.

Until 2018 OPEC expects stable crude and NGL production in Azerbaijan at the average 0.9 million bpd.

According to British BP’s estimations, Azerbaijan's proven oil reserves amounted to 7 billion barrels as of early 2014. Oil production in the country amounted to 0.931 million bpd in 2013.

The main part of oil of energy-rich Azerbaijan is extracted from giant Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block of fields in the Caspian Sea.

Since the beginning of development of the field around 345 million metric tons of oil and 100 billion cubic meters of gas have been extracted.

In 2013, Azerbaijan produced some 43.15 million metric tons of oil. The government expects the oil production in the country to reach about 40.62 million metric tons in 2015 compared to 41.65 million metric tons projected for 2014.