Production at Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli hits 39m barrels

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

The total production at Azerbaijan's Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of fields amounted to 39 million barrels during the first quarter of 2022, BP Azerbaijan has said.

In January-March, the total production on the block of fields amounted to 434,000 barrels per day. Of this, the Chirag field accounted for 25,000 b/d, Central Azeri for 106,000 b/d, West Azeri for 112,000 b/d, East Azeri for 70,000 b/d, Deepwater Gunashli for 79,000 b/d and West Chirag for 42,000 b/d.

At the end of the quarter, 137 wells were producing oil, while 37 wells were used for water and eight for gas injection. In addition, ACG completed three oil producer wells.

During the reported period, ACG delivered 1 billion cubic meters, or an average of 12 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 $133 million in operating expenditure and $396 million in capital expenditure on the ACG activities.

Several major liftings were safely completed at this site during the quarter. These included the main power generator exhaust structure, the flare base section, and the gas injection compressor lifts.

Moreover, in the first three months of the year, the Shah Deniz field produced more than 6 billion cubic meters of gas and more than 1 million tonnes of condensate.

The existing Shah Deniz facilities’ production capacity is currently about 72 million standard cubic meters of gas per day.

During the quarter, the Shah Deniz field continued to provide deliveries of gas to markets in Azerbaijan (to Azerkontrakt), Georgia (to GOGC), Turkey (to BOTAS), and BTC Company in multiple locations. 

Around $759 million were spent on operating expenditure and around $88 million in capital expenditure, the majority of which was associated with the Shah Deniz 2 project.

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).

The contract on the development of the Shah Deniz gas field was signed in 1996. Shareholders of the Shah Deniz project are BP (operator, 28.8 percent), TPAO (19 percent), AzSD (10 percent), SGC Upstream (6.7 percent), and PETRONAS (15.5 percent), LUKOIL (10 percent), and NICO (10 percent).