Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 1 / Trend E. Ismayilov /
At present, the partners developing a block of oil and gas fields "Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli" (ACG) in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea are working over a draft contract for the deep-lying gas extraction in this block, SOCAR head Rovnag Abdullayev told media today.
He said that this will be a new form of the Risk Service Agreement.
"At present, the operations are being conducted to develop the structure of the draft contract," Abdullayev said. "This contract will differ from the previous forms of contract (PSA)."
Regarding the issue of stabilizing the production volumes at ACG block of fields, Abdullayev said that as of January 2013, there are good results and January's figures correspond to the indices of the same month of 2012.
"That is, a decline in oil production volumes is not observed," SOCAR head said.
Regarding the issue of extending the contract on ACG, Abdullayev said that this issue is not on the agenda.
Deep-lying gas reserves at ACG are estimated at 300 billion cubic meters.
The contract on large offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field development was signed in 1994.
Participants of the project to develop Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli are: BP (operator, 35.78%), Chevron (11.27%), Inpex (10.96%), AzACG (11.65%), Statoil (8.56%), Exxon (8%), TPAO (6.75%), Itocu (4.3%) and Hess (2.72%). Hess sold its share to Indian ONGC, the transaction will be completed in the first quarter of 2013.