Azernews.Az

By Akbar Mammadov

The volume of oil produced from the block of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) fields amounted to 505 million tons as of April 1, 2020, the Azerbaijani Energy Ministry has said in a report published in the local media.

“As of April 1, 2020, 505 million tons of oil and 168.4 billion cubic meters of associated gas were produced from the block of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) fields. At the same time, in the first quarter of 2020, 6.4 millions tons of oil (a decline of 7.2%) and 3.5 billion cubic meters of gas (an increase of 9.4%) produced from the ACG block,” the ministry's report says.

According to the Ministry of Energy, the total oil production in Azerbaijan in the first quarter of 2020 exceeded 9.3 million tons, meaning the total export with 7.6 million tons. In the meantime, the total gas production from the Shah Deniz field in 2006-2020 amounted to 121.5 billion cubic meters.

“Moreover, in the first quarter of this year from this, the field produced 4.7 billion cubic meters of gas (an increase of 9.3%) and 0.952 million tons of condensate were produced,” the report says.

The ministry also notes that in the first quarter of 2020, 2.6 billion cubic meters of gas was exported from the Shah Deniz field to Turkey, which is 23% higher than that in the same period of 2019. At the same time, so far, 527 million tons of oil, along with condensate and 80.3 billion cubic meters of gas, have been exported from the Shah Deniz field and the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block to world markets.

According to the new contract for the development of the ACG block, which was initially signed on September 20, 1994, newly signed in Baku on September 14, 2017, the share of British BP (project operator) will be 30.37%, SOCAR (25%), American Chevron (9.57%), ExxonMobil (6.79%), Indian ONGC (2.31%), Japanese Inpex Corp. (9.31%) and ITOCHU Oil (3.65%), Norwegian Equinor (7.27%), Turkish TPAO (5.73%).

It should be noted that investments under the new agreement designed until 2050 are estimated at $43 billion for 2017-2049. According to the contract for the development of the Shah Deniz field signed in Baku on June 4, 1996, the participants in the Shah Deniz project are: BP (operator, 28.8%), Petronas (15.5%), SOCAR (16.7%), LUKOIL (10%), NICO (10%), TPAO (19%). Currently, gas production from the Shah Deniz field is carried out from the Alfa platform as part of Stage 1 and from the Bravo platform as part of Stage 2.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

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