BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. The French TotalEnergies and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) announced the start of production as part of the first phase of the development of the Absheron gas condensate field in the Caspian Sea, about 100 kilometers southeast of Baku on July 10, Caspian oil and gas analyst Ilham Shaban told Trend.
The production capacity is 4 million cubic meters of gas per day and 12,000 barrels of condensate per day. The gas will be sold on the domestic market of Azerbaijan. The development of the Absheron field provides additional gas supplies to meet the growing demand.
The Absheron field will supply 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas and about 500,000 barrels of condensate per year.
According to Shaban, it is assumed that gas will be sold on the domestic market of Azerbaijan, while condensate will be exported abroad via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which is more than 4 million barrels per year.
"Azerbaijan buys 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas on the domestic market, which satisfies the country's growing demand for gas. This was also reflected in the decreased amount of imports," he said.
The analyst noted that Azerbaijan annually buys 4 billion cubic meters of gas from the Shah Deniz field for the domestic market and can reduce these volumes, so to pave way for increasing exports from the Shah Deniz field to the foreign market.
"As a result, we get the opportunity to increase sales volumes to both Turkish and European markets," he added.
Shaban noted that 11.4 billion cubic meters of gas were sold on the European market last year.
"This figure will increase by about 500 million cubic meters this year. The reason why we cannot supply more Azerbaijani gas to Europe is infrastructure, which is already working at the limit of its capabilities. It cannot pass higher volumes," Shaban said.
“We have options to maneuver, as far as Turkish and European markets are concerned, which is good for us. When an opportunity is limited in one market, it can be replaced by another market. The commissioning of the Absheron gas condensate field has been dragging for too long. It will be possible to ensure gas production within the next stage of the field at least within six years," he said.
Production from the Absheron gas condensate field, located in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, began at the stage of the initial production scheme. At this stage, an underwater production well is connected to a new gas processing platform united to existing SOCAR installations on Oily Rocks.