Azerbaijan to earn up to $3 bln from ACG in '06

The $3 billion figure includes both receipts from oil exports, which ran to $807 million last year, and other income, the project leader, BP Plc, said on Monday.

The head of BP in Azerbaijan, David Woodward, said more than 30 million tonnes of oil would be produced in Azerbaijan this year (around 600,000 barrels per day), the highest production in more than 100 years of the oil industry in the Caspian Sea state.

More than 24 million tonnes of that will be exported.

The ACG fields have reserves estimated at 800 million tonnes of oil and they are the main source of crude for the BP-led Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, which will eventually pump more than 1 million bpd from Azerbaijan to the Turkish Mediterranean coast.

It will cover more than one percent of global oil demand and will be a rare source of non-OPEC crude for world markets at a time of booming demand in places like China and India.

The ACG fields' partners include BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Delta Hess, Devon, Japan's Inpex and Itochu, Norway's Statoil, Turkey's TPAO and Azeri state oil firm SOCAR.

/Reuters/