Azerbaijan, Baku, 24 September /corr. Trend S.Aliyev / BP Azerbaijan Company and its partners on the development of gas-condensate field Shah Deniz determined the conception for realization of Stage-2 project including construction of a stationary platform which will produce gas and condensate, a source near the project told Trend . The construction works are envisaged to begin in 2013.
The platform will be constructed in area of Baku Deep Water Jacket Factory named after Heydar Aliyev. The construction of the platform in the Republic will provide an opportunity to decrease the periods of realization of the project, involve local infrastructure and personnel in the works.
Earlier the companies BOS Shelf and McDermott constructed six platforms in this enterprise within the project of development of offshore fields of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli fields, where BP is operator.
The existing equipment, building slip and another infrastructure of plant will make it possible to construct a new platform for "Stage-2" of project "Shah Deniz". In this case, it will not be necessary to build a new transportation infrastructure. Earlier a question was considered to construct a large gas-producing platform, for the transportation of which a new barge and powerful crane vessel were required in the sea. But the decision to build a stationary platform of smaller size removed from the agenda the need of creating the additional infrastructure at the plant.
Self-lifting equipment TPG-500 was installed on the field within the Stage-1 of Shah Deniz project. The body of platform and its upper parts were built in Singapore in the shipyards of Keppel Fels company and were delivered to Baku by sea. Assembling of platform was accomplished in Azerbaijan.
The contract on development of off-shore Shah Deniz field was signed on 4 June 1996. The sides to the contract are ВР (operator - 25.5%), Statoil (25.5%), SOCAR (10%), LukAgip (10%), NICO (10%), Total (10%), and TPAO (9%).
Gas production in the field was launched in December 2006. Presently, gas is transported to Georgia and Turkey via the South-Caucasus gas pipeline. Azerbaijan also purchases the gas.
It is expected that after realization of the second stage of project, the gas will be sold to Greece, Italy and other European countries. Specific hopes for this field are made by the consortium on the building of
Nabucco gas pipeline, which will lay its beginning in Turkey. Part of the gas from Shah Deniz can be supplied via this gas pipeline, which is expected to be put into operation in 2013.
After 2012 the gas production on the field may exceed 20bln cu.m per year.
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