ACG deal extended until 2050
The agreement on development of Azeri, Chirag and Gunashli (ACG) fields together with foreign companies has been extended until 2050.
A plenary session of the Azerbaijani parliament discussed the draft law on adopting, approving, and issuing permission to implement the Agreement on Joint Development and Production Sharing for the Azeri and Chirag Fields and Deep Water Section of the Gunashli Field in the Azerbaijani Sector of the Caspian Sea, signed by SOCAR’s AzACG, BP Exploration (Caspian Sea) Limited, Chevron Khazar Ltd., Exxon Azerbaijan Limited, INPEX Southwest Caspian Sea Ltd., ITOCHU Oil Exploration (Azerbaijan) Inc., ONGC Videsh Limited, Statoil Absheron, and TPAO.
Following the discussions, the agreement was approved by voting.
SOCAR inks co-op deal with US consulting firm
Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR and the US-based consulting firm DeGolyer and MacNaughton, focused on the petroleum industry, signed a cooperation agreement, SOCAR said in a message.
The contract was signed in Baku following a meeting of SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev and President of DeGolyer and MacNaughton John Wallace.
The agreement envisages analysis and technical support to improve the efficiency of field development and production at SOCAR’s oil and gas fields. The document was signed by Rovnag Abdullayev and Senior Vice President of DeGolyer and MacNaughton Martin Wiewiorowski.
According to the signed document, DeGolyer and MacNaughton will provide services on effective management of oil and gas facilities at SOCAR’s fields that had been used for a long time.
For this purpose, DeGolyer and MacNaughton will review the plans on development of 20 fields, prepare recommendations for increasing production and oil recovery rate, reducing costs of oil production, defining short-term strategic goals, and will participate in their implementation.
TAP awards software contract for operational phase
Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) AG has selected PSI Software AG as the provider of the Commercial Dispatching Software (CDS), the consortium said in a message on its website.
The PSI software will enable TAP to perform its commercial dispatching activities for the transport of natural gas.
The CDS supports TAP’s business processes, which include managing transportation contracts, nominations, matching and balancing positions, allocations, and ensuring smooth communication between TAP, its shippers and the adjacent Transmission System Operators (TSOs).
The CDS is also part of TAP’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) telecommunications and security systems contract, awarded in December 2016 to Honeywell.
“While our construction activities are progressing further every day, in parallel, we are ensuring that the pipeline is ready for operations from the day Shah Deniz II gas deliveries begin for European markets,” said Ulrike Andres, Commercial and External Affairs Director at TAP.
TAP is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor which is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to the EU countries.
The pipeline will be connected to the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south.
TAP’s shareholders are: BP (20 percent), State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (20 percent), Snam (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).
SOCAR plans to use Azerbaijan’s big drilling rig in 2018
Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR plans to use the country’s big ‘Dede Gorgud’ floating semi-submersible drilling rig, which is in conservation mode, in drilling operations in the Caspian Sea in 2018, a senior SOCAR representative told Trend.
The source said that SOCAR has specific plans for using it the next year, but it has not yet been determined in which of the projects the drilling rig will be used. “We are currently working on a full-scale project for the development of the Umid gas field, reviving the development of the Karabakh field. Moreover, the government approved a plan for drilling an exploration well on the promising Babek structure, so there are options,” noted the SOCAR representative. The representative added that regardless of the structure of the contract on development of the Umid-Babek block, the main task of SOCAR is to ensure the optimal development of the already explored deposit and to ensure exploratory drilling on promising structures.
“Babek is a very promising structure, so it is strategically important to drill a well there and then transfer reserves from the perspective category to the “C2” category (reserves of explored deposits of complex geological structure and poorly explored reserves) and then think about the development plan,” said SOCAR representative.
Earlier, ‘Dede Gorgud’ floating semi-submersible drilling rig conducted drilling operations on the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block of oil fields under the contract with BP. The ‘Dede Gorgud’ floating semi-submersible drilling rig, built in 1980, can work at a depth up to 500 meters, while the depth of drilling operations reaches 6,100 meters. The Caspian Drilling Company (CDC, 92.44 percent of which is owned by Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR) is the operator of the ‘Dede Gorgud’ drilling rig.