Azerbaijan eyes new technologies to boost oil extraction

Azerbaijan, an energy-rich Caspian country, is planning to raise its oil output by means of nana technologies, increase of oil recovery efficiency and development of new onshore fields.

First Vice-President of SOCAR, Khoshbakht Yusifzade announced about this while talking to reporters this week.

“All fields that we have developed recently were gas fields. This is related to the fact that the development of all shallow bedding oil fields has been almost completed. Herewith, opportunities of oil extraction at the depth of 6,000-7,000 meters are lesser than those of gas production. Therefore major portion of off-shore fields are gas-condensate. Of course we also need oil and there are several ways of increasing on-shore oil extraction. One of the ways is development of new on-shore fields, which should be explored in Mesozoic deposits, and we are currently working with our partners in this direction,” he said.

Yusifzade further mentioned that the growth of oil extraction is possible through increasing the recovery efficiency on old fields.

“Some 1.85 billion tons of oil has been so far extracted in Azerbaijan. Approximately 1 billion of the volume falls to a share of on-shore extraction. Nevertheless, oil recovery efficiency on the fields amounted to only 0.4 percent. We will be able to boost oil extraction should we increase the index up to 0.5-0.6 percent,” he said.

Yusifzade believes that the other method is the use of nana-technologies. “Most of discoveries are being made due to nana-technologies, which are used in medicine and other spheres, including oil industry. The technologies may assist us in a bid to boost oil production rate,” he said.

The major part of oil and gas produced in Azerbaijan, accounts for the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of oil and gas fields and Shah Deniz gas and condensate field developed by SOCAR jointly with foreign partners.

The Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field, which lies 120km off the coast of Azerbaijan, is considered to be the largest oilfield in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. The proven oil reserves of the block amounts to approximately one billion tons.

Shah Deniz field, located on the deep water shelf of the Caspian Sea, 70 km south-east of Baku is one of the world’s largest gas-condensate fields.

Some 24.7 million tons of oil and gas condensate was extracted in the country in January-July 2016. The index is 0.7 percent higher than the rate fixed in the same period of 2015.

The country extracted 41.69 million tons of oil and gas condensate in 2015, as against the volume of 41.9, extracted a year earlier.