Production at Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli hits 4bn barrels

The oil production at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block of fields, which are the largest oil field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, hits 4 billion barrels, BP Azerbaijan has reported.

The 4 billion barrels total production has been transported primarily via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Western Route Export pipelines from the Sangachal terminal near Baku across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the world markets.

To date, BTC has transported around 3.7 billion barrels of oil loaded mostly with ACG oil on 4,847 tankers.

BP's regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey emphasized that the 4 billion barrels of total production achievement are truly remarkable to the celebration of the 27th anniversary of the signing of the Contract of the Century.

"As well as achieving this major production milestone, delivering significant profits to the country and to its shareholders and opening major sustainable development opportunities in local communities, ACG has turned the Caspian into one of the leading energy-producing areas and technologically most advanced oil and gas development regions of the world," he underlined.

" As an operator, we remain committed to working closely with the government, SOCAR and other co-ventures to ensure ACG's fantastic contribution to the country for the next three decades," he added.

It was noted that the field started production from the Chirag platform on November 7, 1997, and now 24 years later continues to play a big role in the safe, efficient and reliable production delivery of ACG.

The initial ACG production sharing agreement (PSA) was signed on 20 September 1994. Since that time around $40 billion of investment has been made into the development of the ACG field. In 2017, the ACG PSA was extended till the end of 2049.

Additionally, ACG has also delivered about 50 billion cubic meters of associated gas in total to Azerbaijan.

ACG currently has eight offshore platforms – six production platforms and two process, gas compression, water injection and utilities platforms. The next development project of ACG - the Azeri Central East (ACE) - is currently under construction and is progressing on a plan with the first oil expected in 2023. The platforms export oil and gas to the Sangachal Terminal, one of the world’s largest oil and gas terminals, onshore near Baku.

On September 20, 2021, Azerbaijan marked national Oil Workers' Day and 27th anniversary of the Contract of the Century.