Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
France’s TOTAL company has started the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) as part of the development of Azerbaijan’s Absheron gas and condensate field, a source in the oil and gas market told Trend.
The source reminded that the Absheron Development Program was approved by SOCAR and Azerbaijani authorities in February 2017.
“Pre-FEED has already been completed and presented to the Absheron JV contractor parties and validated,” said the source. “Now the operator is starting the FEED phase and the final investment decision (FID) is scheduled for December 2017.”
The source said that it is planned to start drilling of the first well at Absheron field in September 2017 and the first gas target is December 2019.
Earlier, SOCAR and TOTAL signed a framework agreement on the main contractual and commercial principles regulating the program of the first phase of Absheron field’s development.
The first phase of the field’s development envisages drilling of one well at a sea depth of 450 meters. The production will stand at up to 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year and these volumes will be used in Azerbaijan’s domestic market. The approximate cost of the first phase is estimated at $1 billion.
Absheron’s reserves are estimated at 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million tons of condensate, according to the estimations of SOCAR geologists.
Participants of the Absheron project are SOCAR (40 percent), and French companies TOTAL (40 percent) and Engie (20 percent).
Engie is expected to sell its share in the project to two other shareholders which will create a joint company JOCAP (the project’s future operator) on a parity basis.
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