Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.27
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
Some 347 million metric tons of oil and 101 billion cubic meters of gas have been produced at the block of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli offshore fields as of October 1, 2014 in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
The first vice-president of SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) Khoshbakht Yusifzade made the remarks Oct.27 in Baku during the XIII Conference on investments and energy regulations of the Energy Rgulators Regional Association.
He said that some 187 million metric tons out of the total volume of oil produced at the block fcame from the profitable oil of Azerbaijan.
"Daily oil production on the block stands at the level of 90,000 tons, and gas at the level of 35 million cubic meters," said Yusifzade.
The contract on the development of the major Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli offshore field was signed in 1994. The proven oil reserve of block is estimated at about 1 billion metric tons.
The shares in the contract are distributed as follows: BP (operator in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli) - 35.78 percent, Chevron - 11.27 percent, Inpex - 10.96 percent, AzACG - 11.65 percent, Statoil - 8.56 percent, Exxon - 8 percent, TPAO - 6.75 percent, Itocu - 4.3 percent and ONGC - 2.72 percent.
ACG accounts for most of the oil produced in Azerbaijan.
He said that during the reporting period Shah Deniz condensate field produced 55 billion cubic meters of gas and 14 million metric tons of condensate. Daily production stands at 27 million cubic meters of gas and 7,000 metric tons of condensate.
Four billion cubic meters of gas was delivered to Georgia via South Caucasus gas pipeline from Shah Deniz, while Turkey received 30 billion cubic meters of gas as of Oct. 1, Yusifzade said.
The contract for development of the Shah Deniz offshore field, which has proven reserve of 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas, was signed on June 4, 1996.
Annual production of gas will increase from 9 billion cubic meters (the first phase) by an additional 16 billion cubic meters in the second phase within the framework of the Shah Deniz project. Two offshore platforms will be installed and more than 20 underwater wells will be drilled for additional production of 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year under the Shah Deniz-2.
The gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of the field's development will be exported to Turkey and to the European markets by means of expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and construction of the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).
The shareholders are: BP, operator (28.8 percent), Statoil (15.5 percent), NICO (10 percent), Total (10 percent), Lukoil (10 percent), TPAO (9 percent) and SOCAR (16.7 percent). These percentages include the recent purchases of equity from Statoil by BP and SOCAR.
Earlier, Total has entered into an agreement to sell its interest in Shah Deniz to TPAO. After the transaction is over, the share of the latter in the project will be 19 percent.
Moreover, Norway's Statoil company has sold its 15.5-percent share in the Shah Deniz project, to the Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas. The transaction is expected to be closed early 2015.