BP Awards Caspian ACG Contracts

The BP-led Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) consortium has signed multiple contracts on engineering, fabrication and construction, project management and other services, it said September 16. It took the final investment decision (FID) in April.

ACG shareholders decided in September 2017 to expand the Caspian Sea block, investing a further $40bn by 2049 but did not approve the first $6bn investment package until April 18, 2019.

Azeri state Socar told NGW that the investment package mostly covers the period to end-2022 and includes $2.6bn in drilling and subsea equipment as well as $3.4bn on constructing a platform.

BP said the $260mn contract for the fabrication of the jacket for the ACE platform and skirt piles was awarded to the consortium consisting of BOS Shelf and Star Gulf. Construction work is to be completed by 2021 at state-run Socar's Heydar Aliev factory in Baku.

The second contract is for the fabrication and integration of the topsides unit for the ACE platform. The $486mn contract was awarded to Azfen in July 2019. The topsides unit will also be built in Azerbaijan and is expected to complete in 2022.

American National Oilwell Varco (NOV) also won the topsides drilling facility engineering, procurement and construction supervision contract, worth $151mn.

The contract for engineering, procurement and construction of the living quarters for the platform has been awarded to Sweden's Emtunga Solutions and is worth around $34mn. 

The $79mn contract for executing the engineering has been awarded to the US Socar-KBR joint venture.

BP holds 30.37% in the project and Socar has a 25% stake. US Chevron, ExxonMobil, Japanese Inpex and Itochu, Norwegian Equinor, Turkish TPAO and Indian ONGC Videsh hold various minority interests.

The consortium had spent about $43.5bn during 1994-2017 in framework of old ACG-1 contract. Azerbaijan’s net profit in the framework of ACG-1 contract amounted to $150.9bn and 42bn m³ of associated gas.