Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR is continuing successful talks with the French company Total on a project to develop the Absheron gas field in the Caspian Sea’s Azerbaijani sector, SOCAR’s head, Rovnag Abdullayev told Trend April 28.
He said that at this stage, Total is preparing a program of the field’s development.
“We are at the stage of completing the initial design and adoption of the FID (Final Investment Decision) project,” said Abdullayev.
As reported previously, SOCAR and Total are in talks on the possibility of processing the Absheron field’s gas at a gas processing plant, to be built as part of creation of a new complex in Azerbaijan.
Here several cooperation options are considered, including the possibility of buying gas from Total at market prices and processing it at the plant for the domestic use or cleaning at the plant for Total for further exports.
According to forecasts, the first volume of gas from the Absheron gas and condensate field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea will be obtained in Q4, 2021.
The final investment decision on the project will be made in Q4 2017, and the drilling of the first well is expected to begin in the last quarter of 2019.
The discovery of the major gas field – Absheron – was announced in September 2011, following the drilling of an exploration well.
The field’s potential reserves stand at 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million metric tons of condensate.
The Absheron project’s participants are: SOCAR (40 percent), Total (40 percent) and Gaz De France Suez (20 percent).
