Azerbaijan, Baku, 13 November / Trend , corr. S.Aliyev, A.Badalova /"The oil production in Azerbaijan in 2008 is forecasted at 45mln tons against the expected 50mln tons," Rovnag Abdullayev, the president of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), said on 13 November.
The decline of oil production is due to interruption of work on platforms in the largest offshore Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field. BP company, the operator of the project, suspended the oil production in the Central Azeri field on 17 September and evacuated the personnel from the platform due to found gas emissions. For security purposes the gas production in the West Azeri platform was also suspended. However, the production from the platform was restored soon.
According to Abdullayev, the oil production from the Central Azeri field will be restored until the end of December.
Azeri Light is produced from ACG field and exported via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
SOCAR also produces oil in Azerbaijan at its own accounts.