Today.Az » Business » Central Azeri Commences Delivery of Gas to Azerbaijan
25 May 2005 [08:07] - Today.Az
The Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), operated by BP, commenced on May 23, delivery of associated gas to the Azerbaijan state from Central Azeri and Sangachal Terminal.
This follows the completion, commissioning and successful testing of a 5350 metre-long 30" (762 mm) new gas export pipeline connecting the Sangachal Terminal gas processing facilities and Azerigas's national grid system.
The parties to the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) Production Sharing Agreement are: BP (operator - 34.1%), Unocal (10.3%), SOCAR (10%), INPEX (10.,0%), Statoil (8,6%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.8%), Devon (5.6%), Itochu (3.9%), Amerada Hess (2.7%).
The design capacity of the pipeline is in excess of 19.8 million cubic meters per day (700 million standard cubic feet per day) at a pressure of up to 40 bar. We expect to deliver in excess of 300 million standard cubic meters of gas from Central Azeri to Azerbaijan in 2005.
The associated gas currently comes from four Central Azeri wells, which in total are now producing in excess of 140,000 barrels of oil per day. From the platform the gas is exported into the Sangachal Terminal gas processing facilities via the new 28" subsea pipeline.
In future gas produced from Central Azeri, beyond that which is to be used for reservoir pressure maintenance and fuel, will continue to be exported via the 28" subsea pipeline into the Sangachal Terminal and from there it will continue to be transported, via the new gas export pipeline into the Azerigas system for domestic use.
The associated gas produced from the Chirag platform will continue to be sent to the SOCAR compression station at the Oil Rocks via the existing 16" subsea gas pipeline, and the remainder will be sent to the Central Azeri compression and water injection platform (C&WP) once it is operational in the first quarter of 2006, for re-injection into the reservoir. This will enable us to stop flaring gas on the Chirag platform.
Currently 100 million scfd of associated gas is delivered to Azerbaijan from Chirag.
Notes:
The ACG Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), signed in September 1994, covers the 30 year development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli contract area. It is estimated that 5.4 billion barrels of oil will be recovered during the PSA period. The field is being developed in several phases: Chirag has been producing since 1997 as part of the Early Oil Project (EOP). This has now been followed by Azeri Project Phase 1 - Central Azeri production. Successive phases include West Azeri and East Azeri as Azeri Project Phase 2, scheduled to come on stream in 2006 and 2007 respectively, with ACG Phase 3 - Deepwater Gunashli, now sanctioned and expected to begin production in 2008.
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