BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 13. The Azeri-Central-East (ACE) project represents the start of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli’s (ACG) renewed contract in action, said Gary Jones, bp’s regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye, Trend reports via bp Azerbaijan, as the company today announced that the ACE platform jacket ready for load-out
“We are very pleased to have completed the first massive piece of the project – the ACE platform jacket, safely and on schedule. This is a significant step towards the first ACE oil achievement. We will now focus on the other parts of the project – topside facilities, subsea construction and offshore installation as we move towards completion of the entire project next year. This will allow us to start drilling the first well for commencement of ACE production,” he said.
Gary Jones thanked the government of Azerbaijan, SOCAR and other partners for their support and cooperation in delivering this important milestone.
“My thanks are also to all people representing bp, contractors and subcontractors whose hard work has made this outstanding achievement possible. I would like to specifically thank BOS Shelf for their firm commitment to bp’s safety standards throughout the three-year construction activities delivering the work without a single day off from work case through 3 million work-hours spent to date,” he added.
The $6 billion ACE project is the next stage of development of the giant ACG field in Caspian Sea.
ACE is centred on a new 48-slot production, drilling and quarters platform located mid-way between the existing Central Azeri and East Azeri platforms in a water depth of approximately 140 metres. The project also includes new infield pipelines to transfer oil and gas from the ACE platform to the existing ACG Phase 2 oil and gas export pipelines for transportation to the onshore Sangachal terminal.
In addition, there will be a water injection pipeline between the East Azeri and ACE platforms to supply injection water from the Central Azeri compression and water injection platform to the ACE facilities.
The ACE platform and facilities are designed to process up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day. The project is expected to produce up to 300 million barrels over its lifetime.
The platform will be remotely controlled from the Sangachal terminal and includes innovative system automation.
BP Exploration (Caspian Sea) Limited is the operator on behalf of the Contractor Parties to the ACG Production Sharing Agreement.
ACG participating interests are: bp (30.37 percent), SOCAR (25 percent), MOL (9.57 percent), INPEX (9.31 percent), Equinor (7.27 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), TPAO (5.73 percent), ITOCHU (3.65 percent), ONGCVidesh (2.31 percent).
Oil production at Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block of fields offshore Azerbaijan is forecast at 153.1 million barrels in 2022, as compared to 167.01 million barrels in 2021, according to the Chamber of Accounts.
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