BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 28
By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:
Oil Rocks and Bulla Deniz will see declining production after 2025, Trend reports with reference to the the book titled “The Southern Gas Corridor and its importance for South-East Europe”.
“According to figures obtained from the Azneft production unit, SOCAR is going to invest in drilling new wells to increase gas production from Bulla Deniz and will also invest in increasing production from Oil Rocks up to 2025. After 2025 gas production from these fields will experience its natural decline,” reads the book.
Also, reportedly, SOCAR is planning to increase the production portfolio by quadrupling production at the Umid field from 311 mcm in 2017 to 1.26 bcm in 2020 and 3 bcm in 2024.
“SOCAR managed to significantly increase gas production in the Bulla-Deniz field in 2014 at the expense of more wells drilled, but was, however, unable to maintain production at the same level due to shortage of investment,” the authors say.
As a result, the production loss in this field was more than 200 mcm in 2015, although this subsequently decreased to a loss of around 100 mcm/year and has now recovered to a level approximately 70 mcm/year below the 2014 level.
The SOCAR/Azneft gas production portfolio comprises volumes from mature natural gas fields that have been producing for decades, but which are now in decline (Gum Deniz-Bahar, Bahar 2, Bulla Deniz, Harazire-Duvanni, Oil Rocks, Guneshli, etc.). Gum Deniz-Bahar, Bahar 2, and Umid are fields that are managed by SOCAR separately or under PSA (Bahar). All the gas produced is consumed in the domestic market. There are several oil fields with substantial associated gas reserves, such as Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and Shallow Water Guneshli. Significant quantities of associated gas are present in other offshore reserves such as Oil Rocks, although much of this gas is used in field operations or re-injected to enhance oil recovery.
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