BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept.20
By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:
bp as the operator of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oil field is proud to announce on behalf of the co-venturers in the ACG project – SOCAR, MOL, INPEX, Equinor, ExxonMobil, TPAO, ITOCHU, ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) – that on 18 September 2021 the field produced the 4 billionth barrel of oil.
The 4 billion barrels total production has been transported primarily via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Western Route Export pipelines from the Sangachal terminal near Baku across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the world markets. To date, BTC has transported around 3.7 billion barrels of oil loaded mostly with ACG oil on 4,847 tankers.
Gary Jones, bp’s regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, said: “This is a great milestone that once again demonstrates that ACG is a world-class field. As operator of ACG we are proud of the field’s amazing delivery story which will continue for many decades to come. The field started production from the Chirag platform on 7 November 1997. Since then, Chirag has made quite a history. Now 24 years later, joined by seven modern, high tech platforms, the historic Chirag continues to play a big role in the safe, efficient and reliable production delivery of ACG.
“Today, Azerbaijan is celebrating the 27th anniversary of the signing of the ‘Contract of the Century’ which is an important day in Azerbaijan’s new history marked as Oil Workers’ Day. The 4 billion barrels of total production achievement is ACG’s truly remarkable gift to the celebration of the day. As well as achieving this major production milestone, delivering significant profits to the country and to its shareholders and opening major sustainable development opportunities in local communities, ACG has turned the Caspian into one of the leading energy producing areas and technologically most advanced oil and gas development regions of the world. As operator we remain committed to working closely with the government, SOCAR and other co-venturers to ensure ACG’s fantastic contribution to the country for the next three decades.”
The initial ACG Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) was signed on 20 September 1994. Since that time around $40 billion of investment has been made into the development of the ACG field.
In 2017, the ACG PSA was extended till the end of 2049.
ACG has also delivered about 50 billion cubic metres of associated gas in total to the Government of Azerbaijan.
ACG currently has eight offshore platforms – six production platforms and two process, gas compression, water injection and utilities platforms. The next development project of ACG - the Azeri Central East (ACE) - is currently under construction and is progressing on plan with first oil expected in 2023.
The platforms export oil and gas to the Sangachal Terminal, one of the world’s largest oil and gas terminals, onshore near Baku.