Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 11
By Maksim Tsurkov – Trend:
Over 1 billion tons of oil have been produced so far at the onshore oil fields in Azerbaijan for the entire period of operation, a source in the country’s oil and gas market told Trend.
The source said that Azerbaijan’s onshore fields still have a large unused potential of oil reserves.
“More than half of the oil reserves at onshore fields remain in the reservoirs,” the source noted. “From this point of view, a 10-20 percent increase in the oil recovery factor would be tantamount to the discovery of new deposits.”
The source added that the increase in the oil recovery factor is the main and primary way to increase oil production in Azerbaijan.
“The work is underway in this direction,” the source said.
The greatest part of the oil produced in Azerbaijan falls on the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of offshore oil and gas fields, the proven oil reserves of which are estimated at 1 billion tons. More than 30 million tons of oil are annually produced at the ACG block, which is being developed by Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR together with foreign companies.
Also, SOCAR independently develops a number of offshore and onshore fields, and the company annually produces more than 8 million tons of oil at them.
Last year, SOCAR produced 8.16 million tons of oil at these fields against 8.32 million tons of oil in 2014. The total volume of oil production in Azerbaijan amounted to 41.59 million tons in 2015 against 42.02 million tons in 2014.
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