Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli total production hits 175m barrels in 2020

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

The total production at Azerbaijan's Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of fields amounted to 175 million barrels during 2020, BP Azerbaijan has said in its annaul report.

Accoring to the report, during last year, the total production on the block of fields was on average about 477,000 barrels per day. Of this, the Chirag field accounted for 34,900 b/d, Central Azeri for 113,200 b/d, West Azeri for 118,900 b/d, East Azeri for 64,200 b/d, Deepwater Gunashli for 95,400 b/d and West Chirag for 50,400 b/d.

At the end of 2020, 127 wells were producing oil, while 45 wells were used for water and 8 for gas injection. In addition, ACG completed 11 oil producer and 2 injector wells.

Moreover, during the reported period, ACG delivered 2.2 million cubic metres, or an average of 6 million cubic meters per day, of ACG associated gas to SOCAR, primarily at the Sangachal Terminal, and to SOCAR’s Oil Rocks facility. The remained of the associated gas produced was re-injected for reservoir pressure maintenance.

Likewise, the company spent more than $531 million in operating expenditure and more than $1.8 billion in capital expenditure on the ACG activities, in 2020.

Additionally, the total oil production from the ACG block of fields since the start of its operations has reached more than 3.8 billion barrels.

Furthermore, in 2020, the Shah Deniz field produced around 18.1 billion cubic metres of gas and 3.6 million tonnes of condensate.

It should be noted that the existing Shah Deniz facilities’ production capacity is currently over 56 million cubic metres of gas per day.

Moreover, it was noted that during the reported period, the Shah Deniz field continued to provide deliveries of gas to markets in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and to BTC Company in multiple locations.

Likewise, during last year, $1 billion were spent in operating expenditure and $942 million in capital expenditure, the majority of which was associated with the Shah Deniz 2 project.

Additionally, on 31 December, Shah Deniz celebrated a significant achievement by commencing first-ever commercial gas deliveries to European markets via the newly-completed Southern Gas Corridor pipeline system. The Shah Deniz field is the starting point of SGC and the commencement of gas deliveries to Europe from Shah Deniz marks the full integration of the entire SGC gas value chain, stretching 3,500 kilometres from Azerbaijan to Europe. With this important achievement, Shah Deniz represents a new source of energy supply for Europe diversifying its energy market and strengthening its energy security.

BP first arrived in Azerbaijan and opened its first office in Baku in June 1992. Over the past years, in partnership with the Azerbaijani government and its co-venturers, the BP-operated world-class projects such as Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG), Shah Deniz, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) have contributed to the development of the Caspian Sea as a modern hydrocarbon province.

The contract for the development of the ACG oil fields was signed on September 20, 1994, and entered force in December. The contract for the development of the ACG block was extended to 2050 in September 2017.

The shareholders in the ACG project are BP (operator, 30.37 percent), SOCAR (25 percent), MOL (9.57 percent), INPEX (9.31 percent), Equinor (7.27 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), TPAO (5.73 percent), ITOCHU (3.65 percent), ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) (2.31 percent).

The contract on the development of the Shah Deniz gas field was signed in 1996. Shareholders of Shah Deniz project are: BP (operator, 28.8 percent), TPAO (19 percent), AzSD (10 percent), SGC Upstream (6.7 percent), PETRONAS (15.5 percent), LUKOIL (10 percent) and NICO (10 percent).