18 Aug 2010 15:35

Azerbaijan's Azneft boosts oil production 0.4% in Jan-July

BAKU. Aug 18 (Interfax) - Azneft, the production arm of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR), edged up oil production 0.4% to 4.258 million tonnes in January-July 2010 compared to the same period of 2009, a SOCAR spokesman told Interfax.

SOCAR received 1.028 million tonnes of oil in the seven months as part of its involvement in oil and gas projects on land and at sea, including 175,600 tonnes from its stake in operating companies developing fields on land, 760,500 tonnes from its interest in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) fields in the Caspian Sea and 92,000 tonnes of condensate from its stake in the Shah Deniz project, the spokesman said.

The company also received 96,500 tonnes of oil to sell on the domestic market from joint ventures and operating companies developing onshore fields in the period.

SOCAR shipped 3.644 million tonnes of oil to be refined in the period.

Six operating companies and two joint ventures are engaged in producing oil and gas at onshore fields in Azerbaijan: Salyan Oil Ltd (SOL, developing the Kyursengi and Garabagly fields), Karasu Operating Company (KOC - Kyalameddin and Mishovdag), Gobustan Operating Company (Southwest Gobustan), Binagadi Oil (Binagadi), AzShengli (Pirsagat) and Shirvanoil (Northern Gyurovdag, Central Gyurovdag and Southern Gyurovdag). The joint ventures are the Azeri-Malaysian-Turkish joint venture ANSHAD Petrol (Neftchala) and Azeri-German AzGerneft (Ramany).

The contract on the development of the ACG fields was signed on September 20, 1994. The project participants are project operator BP (34.1367% interest), Chevron (10.2814%), ExxonMobil (8.0006%), Devon Energy (5.6262%), Amerada Hess (2.7213%), State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) (10%), Inpex Corp. (10%), ITOCHU Oil (3.9205%), Statoil (8.5633%) and TPAO (6.75%).

The contract to develop the Shah-Deniz field was signed on June 4, 1996. The project participants are BP (operator - 25.5%), Statoil (25.5%), State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) (10%), Lukoil (10%), NICO (10%), TotalFinaElf (10%), and TPAO (9%).