Baku, Azerbaijan, March 27
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
Norway's Statoil transactions in the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz project and the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) are expected to close in the next few weeks, BP's vice president for the expansion project for Azerbaijan's giant Shah Deniz field Al Cook told Nefte Compass.
In December, 2014, Statoil signed an agreement to divest a 10-percent share of its 25.5-percent holdings in the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development project and the SCP. The buyers are the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan - SOCAR (6.7 percent) and BP (3.3 percent).
"We're expecting both transactions to close in the next few weeks," Cook said.
The Shah Deniz co-investors are (after acquisitions): BP, operator (28.8 per cent), SOCAR (16.7 per cent), Statoil (15.5 per cent), Total (10 per cent), Lukoil (10 per cent), NICO (10 per cent) and TPAO (9 per cent).
At the same time he also said that BP is not in discussions with Total over its Shah Deniz stake.
Cook mentioned that the first gas within the second stage of the Shah Deniz field development will be in late 2018 for sale in Turkey, with deliveries for European sales coming "around one year later," Cook said. "All projects are on schedule and on budget," he added.
"Since 2007 we have discovered three prospects that we would be interested in exploring in the Shah Deniz contract area," Cook said with regard to the further expansion phase, Shah Deniz-3.
"We have a team working on reprocessing seismic data across the entire block, looking at potential new reservoirs. It [Shah Deniz-3] is now in the appraisal period, and we would not be looking to drill a well before the end of this decade," he said.
The Shah Deniz Stage 2 project will bring gas from the Caspian Sea to markets in Turkey and Europe, opening up the 'Southern Gas Corridor'. Shah Deniz Stage 2 is expected to add a further 16 billion cubic meters per year (BCMA) of gas production to the approximately 9 BCMA from Shah Deniz Stage 1.
This Stage 2 development of the Shah Deniz field, which lies some 70 kilometers offshore in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea, is expected to include two new bridge-linked production platforms; 26 subsea wells to be drilled with two semi-submersible rigs; 500 kilometers of subsea pipelines built at up to 550 meters of water depth; a 16 bcma upgrade for the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP); and expansion of the Sangachal Terminal. The Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) will transport gas across Turkey and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline will transport gas from the Turkish-Greek border to Italy.