Total drafts development program on Azerbaijan’s major field

/By AzerNews/

By Gulgiz Dadashova

Azerbaijan’s energy giant SOCAR is in successful talks with the French Total on a project to develop the Absheron gas field in the Caspian Sea’s Azerbaijani sector.

SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said now Total is preparing a program on the field development.

Total and SOCAR formed a joint venture in 2009 to explore and develop the Absheron field with estimated reserves of 350 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas and 45 tonnes of gas condensate.

“We are at the stage of completing the initial design and adoption of the FEED (Front End Engineering Design) project,” Abdullayev told Trend on April 28.

The talks mull the possibility of processing Absheron field’s gas at a gas processing plant, to be built as part of a new Oil and Gas Processing and Petrochemical Complex (OGPC).

The sides eye several cooperation options, including the possibility of buying gas from Total at market prices and processing it at the plant for the domestic use or cleaning at the plant for Total for further exports.

Total launched exploration on the Absheron prospect in 2011. It expects to commence production at Absheron gas field in the Caspian Sea in 2021.

The Absheron venture expects to produce 5 bcm of gas per year. Total and SOCAR both hold 40 percent stakes in the venture. French group GDF Suez, which joined the project later, owns 20 percent.