Increasing of the oil recovery ratio by 10-15 percent would allow to increase the oil production at Azerbaijan’s onshore fields, First Vice President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Khoshbakht Yusifzadeh said on Dec.19.
He made the remarks during the first congress of Azerbaijani scientists.
Yusifzadeh said with 40-45-percent oil recovery ratio, around 1 billion metric tons of oil was produced at the country’s onshore fields.
“It would be possible to double this volume of production, however, there are no technical opportunities for that,” Yusifzadeh added.
The first vice president said that great attention should be paid to increasing the oil recovery ratio.
Moreover, in terms of prospects for discovery of gas fields in Azerbaijan, SOCAR is carrying out work on developing Mesozoic deposits.
“This work was carried out during the Soviet period as well, however, due to the lack of necessary technologies, it was not possible to achieve industrial production,” Yusifzadeh added. “But now it is possible, taking into account the technological advances.”
Major part of oil produced in Azerbaijan falls to Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil and gas fields’ block, the proven oil reserve of which is estimated at one billion metric tons.
Over 30 million metric tons of oil is produced from the block that is developed by SOCAR jointly with foreign companies.
SOCAR also independently develops a number of onshore and offshore fields from which it produces over 8 million metric tons of oil per year.
