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SOCAR reveals output volumes from Shah Deniz, ACG [UPDATE]

02 June 2017 [13:54] - TODAY.AZ

By Azernews


By Gunay Camal

Roughly 83 billion cubic meters of gas and 21 million tons of condensate have been produced from Azerbaijan’s biggest gas field, Shah Deniz, since its commissioning back in 2006, said Khoshbakht Yusifzade, the First Vice-President of the country’s state oil company SOCAR .

He made the remarks during the 24th International Caspian Oil & Gas Exhibition and Conference 2017 in Baku on June 2.

He noted that Azerbaijan, until today, has exported 6.3 billion cubic meters of gas to Georgia and 46.5 billion cubic meters of gas – to Turkey via the South Caucasus pipeline.

“As part of the first stage of development of the Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas condensate field, 2.3 million cubic meters of gas are supplied to Georgia and 18.5 million cubic meters of gas – to Turkey per day,” noted Yusifzade.

Reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. A contract for development of the field was signed on June 4, 1996. Shah Deniz Stage 2 will add a further 16 billion cubic meters per year of gas production to the approximately 9 billion cubic meters per year produced by Shah Deniz Stage 1.

Shah Deniz Stage 2, one of the largest gas developments in the world, will help increase European energy security by bringing Caspian gas resources to markets in Europe for the very first time.

The project is now over 92 percent complete in terms of engineering, procurement and construction, and remains on target for first gas from Shah Deniz Stage 2 in 2018.

As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and Trans Adriatic Pipeline.

The Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field has produced 428,400,000 tons of oil and 133 billion cubic meters of gas so far, Yusifzade said.

“More than $42 billion have been invested in this project,” he said, stressing that Azerbaijan’s profit oil  volume will increase.

Out of the total crude output of the ACG block, 240 million tons is profit oil, he said.

A contract for developing the ACG field was signed in 1994. The proven oil reserve of the block nears 1 billion tons. Shareholders of the project are BP (operator, 35.78 percent), Chevron (11.27 percent), Inpex (10.96 percent), AzACG (11.65 percent), Statoil (8.55 percent), Exxon (8 percent), TPAO (6.75 percent), Itocu (4.3 percent) and ONGC (2.72 percent).

First production from the Shafag-Asiman offshore block of gas fields in Azerbaijan may begin in 2030, said Bahram Huseynov, vice president for geology and geophysics at the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR.

Huseynov, addressing the event, said it is planned to start drilling the first exploration well at the Shafag-Asiman block in 2019.

“The block's reserves are estimated at about 500 billion cubic meters of gas. We believe the first production there can begin in 2030,” he added.

SOCAR and BP signed a contract on the Shafag-Asiman block of fields for a period of 30 years in October 2010. The exploration period is four years with possibility of extension for three more years.

Bahram Huseynov further said that SOCAR is currently preparing a project for drilling the first exploration well at the prospective Babek structure.

“If the results got after drilling the exploration well are positive, SOCAR will, at the first stage, build a platform and drill 4-5 wells for production there. The gas production itself can begin in 2024-2025 at Babek field,” he explained.

According to preliminary data, reserves of the prospective Babek field may be 400 billion cubic meters of gas and 80 million tons of condensate.

Energy Minister Natig Aliyev earlier said that gas production in Azerbaijan will reach 44.5 billion cubic meters by 2020.

The SOCAR gas production will total to 6.4 billion cubic meters by 2020 against 26.1 billion cubic meters from Shahdeniz and 12 billion cubic meters from Azeri-Chiraq-Gunashli.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/business/161884.html

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