Baku, Azerbaijan, June 2
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
French Total company plans to construct its own terminal in Sangachal settlement in Baku as part of the Stage 1 of development of Absheron gas and condensate field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, Eric Meyer, Total's planning development manager told Trend June 2.
He said Total has already worked out a program for the field's development and will present it to Azerbaijani government in H2 of 2015.
"We plan to drill four subsea wells at Stage 1 of the field's development," said Meyer. "The sea depth there is 500-550 meters, therefore, we won't be able to put a platform there. It will be located on the shelf at about 20 kilometers from the wells, which will be linked with the platform via connectors."
"Gas will be separated from the condensate at the platform and they will be transported to the coast near the Sangachal settlement via two separate pipelines with a length of 119 kilometers," Total's representative added.
He said that the company plans to construct its own terminal in seven kilometers from the coast.
"The gas will be collected and processed at the terminal from where it will be delivered to the local network for the domestic consumption and to the South Caucasus Pipeline for export," Meyer said.
"Moreover, we plan to construct a pipeline from the terminal which will link it with Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and condensate will be exported through it," he added.
The first volume of gas from the Absheron gas and condensate field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea will be obtained in Q4, 2021, according to the forecasts.
The final investment decision on the project will be made in Q4 2017, and the drilling of the first well is expected to begin in the last quarter of 2019.
The discovery of the major gas field - Absheron - was announced in September 2011, following the drilling of an exploration well.
The field's potential reserve stands at 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million metric tons of condensate.
The Absheron project's participants are: SOCAR (40 percent), Total (40 percent) and Gaz De France Suez (20 percent).
Edited by CN
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