Baku, Azerbaijan, March 12
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
Partners on the project for development of the Shah Deniz gas condensate field have agreed on plans for conducting exploration work under the third phase of the field's development, a senior representative of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) told Trend on March 12.
The project's operator presented its data to the project partners, in accordance to which more gas and condensate reserves can be detected in the Shah Deniz field, according to the senior representative. In this case we are talking about an additional 0.5 trillion cubic meters of gas and relevant volume of condensate.
"The issues of conducting seismic surveys, as well as exploration drilling have already been agreed," the company's representative said.
It is planned to implement the project in the period after 2025 which will allow keeping peak volume of production at around 25 billion cubic meters of gas per year. If the reserves are proven, the field's renewable reserves will hit 1.7 trillion cubic meters.
The implementation of the third phase will require the use of modern technologies, which also requires additional investments. The total volume of investments under this project hasn't been determined yet.
The partners on the project also agreed on the program of maintaining a stable production volume in the second phase of the field's development.
On December 17, 2013, a final investment decision was made on the second phase of the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz offshore gas and condensate field's development. Gas from the field will go in the first instance to the European marketplace. The gas to be produced within the second phase of the field's development will be exported to Turkey at six billion cubic meters per year and to European markets at 10 billion cubic meters per year by means of expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and construction of the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).
The contract for development of the Shah Deniz offshore field was signed on June 4, 1996.
The agreement's participants include such companies as the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) with a 16.7 percent share, BP (28.8 percent), Norway's Statoil (15.5 percent), Iran's NICO (10 percent), the French Total (10 percent), Russia's Lukoil (10 percent) and Turkish TPAO (nine percent).
Around 9.8 billion cubic meters of gas and 2.48 million tons of condensate (19.6 million barrels) were produced at the Shah Deniz field in 2013, compared to 7.73 billion gas and two million tons of condensate in 2012, according to BP's report.
The average daily volume of gas production at the field amounted to 26.8 million cubic meters, while the average daily volume of condensate production was equal to 53,740 barrels.
Translated by L.Z.
Edited by C.N.