BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16
Trend:
Natural gas production increased by 17 percent last year in Azerbaijan due to decrease in oil production in the country, Trend reports with reference to Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR.
The company also managed to achieve stabilization in oil and gas production last year, according to the report.
“In connection with the development of gas chemical industry and the expansion of gas infrastructure for the population, the domestic level of natural gas consumption grew by almost 9 percent,” the report said.
Azerbaijan also increased the export of natural gas by 23 percent, in particular, 2.8 billion cubic meters of gas were exported through the Southern Gas Corridor for the year, according to the report.
“With the commissioning of new SOCAR petrochemical facilities, an increase in the volume of oil refining and petrochemical exports was recorded by 22 percent,” the report said. “SOCAR was also able to stabilize the production of oil and gas in its fields in 2019, having produced 7.7 million tons of oil and 6.8 billion cubic meters of gas in the year.”
The total gas production in Azerbaijan increased by almost 17 percent in 2019 compared with 2018 and reached 35.6 billion cubic meters of gas; and 37.5 million tons of crude oil were produced in the country last year, according to the report.
“Despite that the company managed to stabilize oil production directly at its fields, there is a steady decline in oil production, including the indices of other companies operating in the country,” the report said. “A natural decline is observed in the Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli complex of oil fields.”
The contract for developing the ACG field was signed in 1994. A ceremony to sign a new contract on development of the ACG block of oil and gas fields was held in Baku Sept. 14, 2017.
The ACG participating interests are as follows: BP - 30.37 percent; AzACG (SOCAR) - 25 percent; Chevron - 9.57 percent; INPEX - 9.31 percent; Statoil - 7.27 percent; ExxonMobil - 6.79 percent; TP - 5.73 percent; ITOCHU - 3.65 percent; ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) - 2.31 percent.