Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr S. Aliyev / Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) is proceeding with production of high-gravity oil in Chirag field which is included into Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli bloc of fields, according to ВР Azerbaijan, which is the operator of development of the fields.
At present 104,000 barrels of oil a day is produced in Chirag 1 platform (122,900 barrels a day in August). Export of oil via Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan is in progress.
BP suspended production of high-gravity oil in Azerbaijan's Azeri and partially Chirag fields for 18-month period on 3 September.
Suspension of oil production was caused by plans on setting of equipment intended to increase the volumes of pumped formation waters and gas in the Central Azeri platform. Formation water received after oil processing will be delivered to the platform via a new pipeline and again pumped to the layer.
The sides to the production sharing agreement on Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field are BP (operator- 34.1%), Chevron (10.2%), SOCAR (10%), INPEX (10%), Statoil (8.6%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.8%), Devon (5.6%), ITOCHU (3.9%) and Hess (2.7%).