Azernews.Az

Volumes of recoverable oil reserves at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil and gas fields' block in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea have increased by 76 percent.

"If the initial volume stood at 511 million tons, then as a result of exploration work recoverable reserves exceeded 900 million tons," First Vice-President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Khoshbakht Yusifzade said at the BP's Forum on Technology, which is underway in Baku on Tuesday.

Some 151 million tons accounts for profit oil.

"In 1997, oil production dropped to record volumes, now due to Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli this figure increased to 50 million tons. Gas production increased from five billion cubic meters to 28 billion cubic meters," Yusifzade said.

In recent years, he said a decrease was observed at the block of fields, but the situation is stable now.

"Studies of recent months show that BP has stabilized its oil production and works stable. But there are some moments, such as flooding, complexity of drilling, and also there are problems in the injection of water and gas. This process should be controlled. For example, we pump 30 million cubic meters into the reservoir, but it is not really effective. Regarding the Guneshli field, we pump more water in the reservoir that needed. These problems are observed during the extraction. It is important to define and eliminate them, and BP started to eliminate these problems," Yusifzade said.

"We brought top world experts to Baku, to discuss oil and gas production at the fields of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli and Shah Deniz. It should be noted that BP has a long history of investing in technologies in Azerbaijan: seismic data projecting and angled drilling at a great distance, equipment for well-completion to deal with sand, and control over wells," BP Azerbaijan President Gordon Birrell said.

He said if the company did not use these high technologies, then it would be impossible to achieve such extraction volume.

"To achieve the goals set in the production, we should at most efficiently work with all interested parties, which include not only SOCAR, but also with other departments, which include the Ministry of Industry and Energy, Ecology and Natural Resources, Ministry of Emergency Situations, the State Customs Committee, as well as the State Migration Service," Birrell said.

Oil reserves at Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli are estimated at 1.2 billion tons. The contract on the field development was signed in 1994.

Participants of the project to develop Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli are: BP (operator, 35.78 percent), Chevron (11.27 percent), Inpex (10.96 percent), AzACG (11.65 percent), Statoil (8.56 percent), Exxon (8 percent), TPAO (6.75 percent), Itocu (4.3 percent) and Hess (2.72 percent).

Hess sold its share to Indian ONGC, the transaction will be completed in the first quarter of 2013.