BP to start drilling first production well from new ACG block platform in Caspian Sea in coming days

BAKU. Nov 21 (Interfax) - In the coming days, BP-Azerbaijan will begin drilling its first production well from the new Central East Azeri (CEA) platform in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.

"In the coming days, BP will begin drilling a production well from the CEA offshore platform," the company's regional chief financial officer, Colin Alan, said in Baku at the tenth Caspian Region Technical Conference of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

This will be the first production well from this platform, he said.

Earlier, Gary Jones, BP President for the Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey region, said that the company plans to drill three production wells to obtain first oil from the CEA platform. The company expects to receive first oil from the platform in early 2024.

For the first nine months of 2023, ACG produced 100 million barrels (14 million tonnes) of oil, which is 12.3% less than the figure for the same period in 2022.

The CEA project is the next stage in the development of the ACG block. The project includes plans to drill 48 wells, which will be carried out by the Turan Drilling Company.

The goal of the CEA project is to achieve daily peak production of up to 100,000 barrels of oil and 350,000 cubic feet of gas by drilling additional wells and installing additional offshore facilities.

On April 19, 2019, in Baku, the shareholders of the ACG field development project signed a final investment decision on the CEA project worth $6 billion, of which about $3.2 billion are construction costs, and the rest are development costs, including the drilling of new wells.

The project involves the construction of a new production and drilling platform with a residential block between the Central Azeri and East Azeri platforms at a sea depth of 137 meters.

The contract for the development of the Azeri, Chirag and deep-water Gunashli fields was signed in 1994, with expiration in 2024. However, in September 2017, a new contract was signed for the development of the ACG block through 2050.

Under the new contract, the share of British BP (the project operator) is 30.37%, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan owns 25%, Hungarian MOL owns 9.57%, American ExxonMobil has 6.79%, Indian ONGC Videsh - 2.31 %, Japanese Inpex Corp. and ITOCHU Oil - 9.31% and 3.65%, respectively, Norwegian Equinor owns 7.27%, and Turkish TPAO has 5.73%.