BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 13. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline through Türkiye transported 55.3 million barrels of oil from January through March 2024, up nearly one percent year on year, BOTAS International Ltd. (BIL, operator of the Turkish section of the oil pipeline) said last week, Trend reports.
On May 10, bp said that in the first quarter of this year, nearly 54 million barrels of crude oil were transported via BTC pipeline, compared to 53 million barrels for the same period in 2023.
bp's statistics included oil and condensate from Azerbaijan's fields, as well as volumes of oil transportation from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Since the commissioning of the 1,768 km-long BTC pipeline in June 2006 until the end of the first quarter of 2024, nearly 4.3 billion barrels (about 568 million tons) of crude oil have been transported through this pipeline.
In the quarterly release, bp also noted that around 56 million barrels of oil and condensate passed through the Sangachal Terminal from January through March this year.
Operational and capital expenditures on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline in the first quarter of 2024 amounted to nearly $33 million and $7 million, respectively, compared to $34 million and $10 million for the same period in 2023, bp also said on May 10.
The company, which operates oil production on the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block in Azerbaijan, also reported that the average oil production level from ACG in the first quarter of 2024 was 339,000 barrels per day, compared to 386,000 barrels per day for the same period in 2023.
In total, approximately 31 million barrels, or 4 million tons, of oil were produced from ACG for this quarter.
bp announced on May 7 the completion ahead of schedule of planned maintenance work on the Deepwater Gunashli platform and the resumption of hydrocarbon production from it.
The company also clarified that production from the Deepwater Gunashli platform was suspended on April 25th for 15 days, but the planned repair work was completed ahead of schedule, namely by May 7.
Additionally, bp noted that during the first quarter of 2024, the Sangachal Terminal dispatched approximately 75 million cubic meters of gas per day (about 2,660 million standard cubic feet) to all categories of consumers (both within and outside Azerbaijan), compared to 73 million cubic meters for the same period in 2023.
bp also stated that in the reporting period, the delivery of associated gas from the ACG block to the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) averaged around 7.4 million cubic meters per day (resulting in 700 million cubic meters for the quarter).
As for the Shah Deniz gas condensate field (operated by bp), in the first quarter of 2024, a total of approximately 7 billion cubic meters of gas and over one million tons (about 9 million barrels) of condensate were produced from it (from the Shah Deniz Alpha and Shah Deniz Bravo platforms), similar to the production during the same period last year.
On May 10, bp also announced that the operational and capital expenditures of the Shah Deniz consortium for the development of this field in the first quarter of 2024 amounted to approximately $719 million and $201 million, respectively, with the majority of these expenses associated with the second stage of development (Shah Deniz-2).
In the quarterly report, bp also noted that the operational and capital expenditures on the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP, the export pipeline to the borders of Georgia and Türkiye) for the first quarter of this year amounted to nearly $17.3 million and $1.2 million, respectively.
The SCP is the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC, to deliver Caspian gas to Europe via Türkiye), with the second segment being TANAP (in Türkiye), and the third being the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP, in the European Union).
Last week, TAP said that in the first four months of 2024, it delivered four billion cubic meters of gas to EU countries.
Overall, since its operation began (in December 2020), 35 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas have been transported through this pipeline.
According to TAP consortium data, out of the total volume for the first four months of 2024, 320 million cubic meters were transported to Bulgaria, 340 million cubic meters to Greece, and 3.31 billion cubic meters to Italy.
On May 8, the President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev visited Azerbaijan, and during the meeting with the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, it was announced that Azerbaijan can transport 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Bulgaria this year (covering 55 percent of Bulgaria's needs), compared to 1.25 billion cubic meters in 2023.
The point was mainly about gas from the Shah Deniz field.
During this visit, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and the Bulgarian Asarel Industrial Holding signed a memorandum of understanding on May 8 in Baku.
It was revealed that the parties plan to jointly carry out the gasification of two cities in central Bulgaria near Plovdiv over the next few years.
On May 8, it was also revealed that the Bulgarian M-Gas private company and SOCAR are exploring opportunities for cooperation to enter the markets of third countries.
In addition to this, on May 8, the Caspian Lubricants Recycling Company with Bulgarian capital received a certificate (status) from a resident of the Sumgayit Chemical-Industrial Park (SCIP) and intends to process 24,000 tons of used industrial oils per year in Azerbaijan (this project, worth more than 13 million manat ($7.6 million), will be implemented in the country for the first time).
Further prospects for Azerbaijani-Bulgarian cooperation will be discussed in early July at a meeting of the intergovernmental commission.
Last week, the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) said that from January through April 2024, it received revenues from the Shah Deniz project amounting to $202.7 million, compared to $935.75 million for the same period in 2023.
Such a significant decrease in the indicator was revealed to be due to the fall in gas prices in the EU market.
The revenues of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block from January 1 to May 1, 2024, amounted to almost $1.8 billion, compared to $2.46 billion for the same period in 2023.
Besides, last week, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasted oil production in Azerbaijan to reach 650,000 barrels per day in 2025, which is 10,000 barrels per day higher than the previous forecast.
SOCAR announced this week that oil exports in the first quarter of 2024 were recorded at 3.9 million tons, compared to 4.6 million tons for the same period in 2023.
This figure included both the oil produced by SOCAR and the government of Azerbaijan's share, as well as SOCAR's share in the oil produced by international consortia in the country.
Additionally, SOCAR said that its own gas production in the first quarter of 2024 amounted to 2 billion cubic meters, compared to 2.2 billion cubic meters for the same period in 2023.
However, SOCAR's oil production (outside international contracts) for the first three months of 2024 remained stable at 1.9 billion tons, unchanged from the previous year.
Furthermore, this week, SOCAR Petroleum SA (the Romanian subsidiary of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) announced its profit of 10.7 million lei ($2.3 million) in 2023 compared to 5.3 million lei in 2022, with a turnover of 2.72 billion lei (approximately $581 million) compared to 2.6 billion lei ($559.3 million) in 2022.
It was also announced that a delegation from SOCAR plans to participate in the 26th International Oil and Gas Exhibition-Conference "OGU 2024" and "Uzbekistan Energy Week", which will take place on May 14–16 in Tashkent.
SOCAR President Rovshan Najaf was listed as a speaker at the plenary session on May 14 under the theme "Harmonization of Energy Policies".