Azernews.Az

By Sara Israfilbayova

Since the beginning of development, from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of oil and gas fields 445.4 million tons of oil and 140.5 billion cubic meters of gas have been produced.

First Vice-President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Khoshbakht Yusifzadeh noted that the project participants have been receiving profits from profitable oil for 19 years.

“As of January 1, 2018, 250.7 million tons of Azerbaijani profitable oil was sold on the world market, which is equal to 55 percent of total production from ACG,” Yusifzadeh stressed.

The company’s Vice-President underlined that as of January 1, 2018, 466.7 million tons of oil were exported to the world market, of which 350 million tons accounted for the share of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.

Azerbaijan has a large number of oil and gas fields and promising structures in the Caspian Sea. One of them is the block of oil and gas fields “Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli” (ACG), proven oil reserves of which are estimated at 1.2 billion tons, while gas reserves-350 billion cubic meters.

Another large field is the Shah Deniz gas condensate field, reserves of which are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. Within the second stage of field development, the volume of gas production can be increased to 24 billion cubic meters per year, according to forecasts.

There are also such deposits as Absheron (350 billion cubic meters), Umid (200 billion cubic meters), and the promising structure of Babek (400 billion cubic meters).

Azerbaijani gas is currently exported directly by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan SOCAR to Iran and Georgia, and by the Shah-Deniz consortium via the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum gas pipeline to Georgia and Turkey.

The overwhelming part of oil produced in Azerbaijan falls on ACG block. Almost all oil from the block is exported by the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.

Azerbaijan's oil is exported from the country not only in raw form, but also in the form of oil products. The country’s only oil producer is SOCAR.

Azerbaijan’s oil products are exported to such countries as Turkey, Georgia, Italy, Egypt, Greece, Lebanon, Singapore, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Malta, Libya, Romania, China, Spain, Bahamas and others.

A contract for development of ACG block of oil and gas fields was signed in 1994 for 30 years.

Thirteen companies from eight countries (Azerbaijan, the U.S., Great Britain, Russia, Turkey, Norway, Japan, Saudi Arabia) have participated in signing of the "Contract of the Century".

The agreement will cover the development of the field until 2050 and will add significant resource development potential. The document specifies the key commercial terms for the future development of the ACG field and enables the parties to conclude negotiations and finalize fully-termed agreements in the next few months.

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