BP, Azerbaijan’s oil giant agree on Shah Deniz field development program

By Azernews

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

BP-Azerbaijan and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) have agreed on a work program for the Shah Deniz field development project for 2020, BP Vice President for Foreign Relations and Strategic Issues in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Bakhtiyar Aslanbeyli told local media on November 27.  

“We agreed with the SOCAR on the program of work on the Shah Deniz project for next year. Now we are working on production figures for the field in 2020,” Aslanbeyli said.

He also added the company has fulfilled the plan for 2019 for gas production from the field.

In January-September 2019, BP-Azerbaijan produced 12.4 billion cubic meters of gas from the Shah Deniz field (an increase of 55 percent in comparison to the same period of 2018), 2.6 million tons of condensate (an increase of 44.4 percent).

Earlier, SOCAR’s Vice President for field development Yashar Latifov said that production at Shah Deniz will amount to 19 billion cubic meters in 2019.

In 2018, BP Azerbaijan produced 11.5 billion cubic meters of gas and 2.5 million tons of condensate from the above-mentioned field. Currently, the capacity of the existing production system at the Shah Deniz field is about 20 billion cubic meters of gas per year or 56 million cubic meters of gas per day.

The agreement on the exploration, development and shared production of promising areas of Shah Deniz was signed on June 4, 1996. The agreement on the division of production was ratified on October 17, 1996.

The project participants are: BP (operator, 28.8 percent), TPAO (19 percent), SOCAR (16.7 percent), Petronas (15.5 percent), LUKOIL (10 percent), NICO (10 percent).

Currently, gas production from the Shah Deniz field is carried out as part of Stage 1 from the Alfa platform and as part of Stage 2 from the Bravo production platform.

SOCAR is involved in exploring oil and gas fields, producing, processing, and transporting oil, gas, and gas condensate, marketing petroleum and petrochemical products in domestic and international markets, and supplying natural gas to industry and the public in Azerbaijan.

Three production divisions, one oil refinery and one gas processing plant, a deep water platform fabrication yard, two trusts, one institution, and 23 subdivisions are operating as corporate entities under SOCAR.

The company conducts various petroleum activities in countries such as Georgia, Turkey, Romania, Switzerland, Germany and Ukraine, including trading activities, mainly in Switzerland, Singapore and Nigeria.