Azerbaijan boosts natural gas production, export in Jan-Aug

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan increased gas production and export, while decreasing oil production and export during the period of January-August 2020.

Gas production and export

During the first eight months of 2020, Azerbaijan increased natural gas production by 8.7 percent or 2 billion cubic meters compared to the same period of 2019. Thus, the natural gas production during the reporting period amounted to 25.1 billion cubic meters.

Of this, Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli accounts for 7.9 billion cubic meters, while Shah Deniz for 12.3 billion cubic meters. SOCAR has produced 4.9 billion cubic meters of gas during this period.

In the reporting period, gas sales abroad increased by 17.6 percent and amounted to 8.7 billion cubic meters.

Turkey exported 7.2 billion cubic meters of gas, which is by 25.3 percent more than in the same period of 2019. It should be noted that 2.8 billion cubic meters of gas were transported to Turkey via TANAP during this period. Thus, about 6.7 billion cubic meters of gas were transported to Turkey via TANAP during the period of June 30, 2018 to September 1.

Georgia accounted to 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas exports from Azerbaijan.

Oil production and export

Some 23.2 million tons of oil, including condensate, were produced in Azerbaijan during the first eight months of the year, which is by 1.8 million tons less than in the same period of 2019.

Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli accounted for 16 million tons of oil produced in the country, while Shah Deniz accounted for 2.4 million tons of oil, including condensate. SOCAR’s oil production was 4.8 million tons.

Moreover, during the reporting period, the country exported 19.2 million tons of oil, including condensate, which is by 8 percent or 1.7 million tons less than in the same period of 2019. In addition, the consortium accounted for 18.4 million tons of oil export, while SOCAR for 0.8 million tons.

Likewise, since commissioning of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and Shah Deniz fields, 545.5 million tons of oil, including condensate, have been produced and 544.9 million tons of oil, including condensate, exported. Some 172.8 billion cubic meters of gas was produced from Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field and 129.1 billion cubic meters from Shah Deniz field. In addition, since the commissioning of the Shah Deniz field, 85.7 billion cubic meters of gas had been exported.

Additionally, by the end of eight months of 2020, the volume of oil processing in the country amounted to 4 million tons, which is by 201,000 tons less than in the same period last year.

The contract for the development of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields was signed in 1994 extended to 2050 in September 2017.

The shareholders in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli project are BP (operator, 30.37 percent), SOCAR (25 percent), American Chevron (9.57 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), Indian ONGC (2.31 percent), Japanese Inpex Corp. (9.31 percent), ITOCHU Oil (3.65 percent), Norwegian Statoil (7.27 percent) and Turkish TPAO (5.73 percent).

The contract on development of Shah Deniz gas field was signed in 1996. Shareholders of Shah Deniz project are: BP (operator, 28.8 percent), TPAO (19 percent), SOCAR (16.7 percent), Petronas (15.5 percent), LUKOIL (10 percent) and NICO (10 percent).