BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 4. The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) aims to reach the final investment decision (FID) on the second phase of the Absheron Caspian gas condensate field development by the end of 2024, SOCAR Vice President Babak Huseynov told reporters, Trend reports.
“Negotiations with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and TotalEnergies on the FID are ongoing. We hope to reach a decision by the end of 2024,” Huseynov stated.
He added that if there are any issues during the negotiations, the FID could still be finalized by mid-2025.
The participants in the Absheron Caspian project are SOCAR (35 percent), TotalEnergies (35 percent), and ADNOC (30 percent).
The Absheron field produced its first gas on July 10, 2023, as part of Phase 1 development. The peak annual production for Absheron Phase 1 is expected to reach 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas, potentially by 2024. SOCAR purchased all the gas from the first phase. The second phase aims to increase total gas production to 5–6 billion cubic meters per year, allowing Azerbaijan to have additional gas for export.
In 2023, Absheron produced 800 million cubic meters of natural gas and 300 thousand tons of condensate. The gas was used domestically, while the condensate was exported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.
The contract area of the field is 747 square kilometers, located 100 km from Baku at a depth of 500 meters. Reserves are estimated at 350–400 billion cubic meters of gas. From January through March 2024, JOCAP (Joint Operating Company of Absheron Petroleum B.V.), responsible for extracting hydrocarbons from this field, produced 400 million cubic meters of gas and 140,000 tons of condensate from the Absheron field.
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