BP's Caspian Sea Output Hits Record

BP-operated gas projects in Azerbaijan’s offshore fields, including Shah Deniz Stage 1 (SD1) and Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) produced 13.45bn m³ of commercial gas in 2016, or 71.7% of Azerbaijan’s total commercial gas output. SD 1’s output stood at 10.7bn m³, the highest volume ever. The latest record occurred in 2014, when the figure reached 10.1bn m³.

The UK major announced February 21 that ACG delivered an average of 7.5mn m³/d, or 2.73bn m³ in total of associated gas to the Azerbaijan’s state-run oil company Socar. SD1 and ACG’s commercial gas output was 9.9bn m³ and 3.2bn m³ in 2015.

In 2016, Shah Deniz spent about $469mn in operating expenditure and about $3.7bn in capital expenditure, the majority of which was associated with the Shah Deniz Stage 2 project, the report said. SD2 is due to produce 16bn m³/yr of gas in 2021, all for export to Turkey and Europe.

The field also produced 2.5mn mt (about 20mn barrels) of condensate in 2016. The existing Shah Deniz facilities’ production capacity is 30mn m³/d or around 10.9bn m³/yr, the report added.

Shah Deniz participating interests are: BP (operator – 28.8%), AzSD (10.0%), SGC Upstream (6.7%), Malaysian Petronas (15.5%), Lukoil (10%), Iran's Nico (10%) and Turkish TPAO (19%).

Azerbaijan desk