Output from Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli offshore deposit hits 114m barrels

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

The total production of Azerbaijan's Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of fields has amounted to 114 million barrels during the three quarters of 2022, bp Azerbaijan told Azernews.

From January to September, the total production from the block of fields amounted to 418,000 barrels per day. Of this, the Chirag field accounted for 25,000 b/d, Central Azeri for 105,000 b/d, West Azeri for 108,000 b/d, East Azeri for 63,000 b/d, Deepwater Gunashli for 77,000 b/d and West Chirag for 40,000 b/d.

At the end of the nine months, 137 wells were producing oil, while 33 wells were used for water and eight for gas injection. In addition, ACG completed 11 oil production wells and two water injector wells.

During the reporting period, ACG delivered 2.2 billion cubic meters, or an average of 8 million cubic meters per day of ACG-associated gas to the state of Azerbaijan, primarily at the Sangachal Terminal, and to SOCAR’s Oil Rocks facility. The remaining associated gas produced was re-injected for reservoir pressure maintenance.

The company spent about $337 million in operating expenditures and $1.2 billion in capital expenditure on ACG activities.

During the third quarter, the Azeri Central East (ACE) platform topsides and drilling facilities fabrication activities continued at the fabrication yard in Bibi-Heybat. The integration of the drilling facilities into the topsides progressed with both the modular drilling support module (MDSM) and the drilling equipment set (DES) fully handed over to commissioning and the drilling rig skidding commissioning commenced.

This followed the safe execution of the 2,350 tonnes MDSM and the 2,400 tonnes DES jack up to the final height of around 27 meters and then the successful skid onto the topsides deck. This was a carefully planned complex “Jack and Skid” operation and a first for bp globally.

At the Sangachal terminal, onshore site construction and standalone commissioning activities for the ACE operations control from the shore came to end, and integration works with ACE topsides commenced. The project also commenced offshore execution for the ACE oil pipeline tie-in scope on the Central Azeri platform.

By the end of the third quarter of 2022, the ACE project had almost reached the 80 percent progress milestone. All engineering, procurement, and onshore fabrication works remain on track to be completed in 2023.

BP opened its first office in Baku in June 1992 and has since then contributed to Azerbaijan’s oil and gas sector through operating projects such as Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG), Shah Deniz, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC), and South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP).

The contract for the development of the ACG oil fields was signed on September 20, 1994, and took force in December. The contract for the development of the ACG block was extended to 2050 in September 2017.

The shareholders in the ACG project are BP (operator, 30.37 percent), SOCAR (25 percent), MOL (9.57 percent), INPEX (9.31 percent), Equinor (7.27 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), TPAO (5.73 percent), ITOCHU (3.65 percent), ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) (2.31 percent).