BP-Azerbaijan plans to start drilling the first production well in the second half of 2024 (according to Caspian Barrel – in September) to extract gas from deep-lying formations of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block (ACG), Jim O’Leary, BP’s vice president for wells in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkiye stated.
According to him, BP expects to produce the first volumes of natural gas in early 2025.
The reserves of deep-gas at ACG have not yet been officially announced. However, geologists of Azerbaijan believe that at a depth of more than 4,000 meters, the gas layers contain at least 100 bcm of reserves of natural gas.
By the end of 2023, 216 bcm of associated gas were produced at ACG, of which only 55 bcm of volumes became marketable – the remaining volumes were pumped into oil wells to maintain reservoir pressure.
The contract for the development of the Azeri, Chirag and deepwater Gunashli fields was signed on September 20, 1994 and entered into force on December 12 of the same year.
This agreement was due to expire in 2024. However, on September 14, 2017, a new contract for the development of the ACG block, calculated until 2050, was signed in Baku.
Under the new contract, the share of British bp (the project operator) is 30.37%, SOCAR (25%), Hungarian MOL (9.57%), American ExxonMobil (6.79%), Indian ONGC Videsh (2.31%), Japanese Inpex Corp. (9.31%) and ITOCHU Oil (3.65%), Norwegian Equinor (7.27%), Turkish TPAO (5.73%).
On December 22, 2023, Equinor signed an agreement to sell its interest in the project to SOCAR. The transaction will be considered completed after fulfilling a number of obligations of the parties.
