BP-Azerbaijan company has released the semi-annual results of its activities in the country. Production on the Western Chirag platform, which was a part of the Chirag Oil Project (2010-2013) and cost the shareholders of the consortium $6 billion, was the most important information in the report.
According to BP-Azerbaijan, during the first semi-annual period average daily production on the Western Chirag platform totaled 25,900 barrels a day. Is this a lot or not?
At present Western Chirag has four operating wells – this means that each well produces over 6,400 barrels of oil a day. If one compares results of productivity of wells located on the other platforms of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG), then it will look like following:
|
Platform |
Year of putting the platform into operation
|
Average productivity of the well (barrels a day) |
| Chirag | November 7, 1997 | 5061 |
| Western Chirag | January 28, 2014 | 6475 (12 500) |
| Central Azeri | February 13, 2005 | 9311 |
| Western Azeri | December 30, 2005 | 9172 |
| Eastern Azeri | October 21, 2006 | 6400 |
| Deep-water Guneshli | April 4, 2008 | 9900 |
As one can see from the table, during this period productivity of the wells on the Western Chirag was above the level of ones on the Chirag platform and at the level of the wells on the Eastern Azeri platform. However, by present the production on the platform has already reached 50,000 barrels a day. Therefore, productivity of the wells totals in average 12,500 barrels – these are the most productive wells on the contract area.
According to BP’s plans, in the future it is planned to increase production on the Western Chirag platform up to 160,000-170,000 barrels a day. This is very important for Azerbaijan, because after three-four years production will decline on other ACG platforms, which have already extracted majority of hydrocarbons from the bowels of earth. Then Western Chirag will be used to maintain production, because from this platform it is possible reach the beds between Guneshli and Chirag.
