BAKU

British oil major BP has completed almost a month of maintenance work on its Chirag oil platform in Azerbaijan two days ahead of schedule, the company said.

A BP-led consortium produces oil at Azerbaijan’s giant off-shore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oilfields, which account for most of the country’s oil production.

“All works envisaged by the programme were carried out in compliance with all safety requirements. Upon completion, all mining, preprocessing and product export systems from the platform were resumed. At present, the process of a gradual increase in oil production continues,” BP-Azerbaijan said.

As part of the programme of preventive and inspection work on the Chirag platform, various projects were carried out, including the replacement of equipment at the flare unit, the modernisation of the ignition system, and other important repairs, Tamam Bayatly, the company spokeswoman, said.

“The main part of the programme was the work on the gas lift project, which will extend the life of Chirag, supporting production from it and ensuring sustainable production,” she added. Operation of other platforms and export operations continued, as usual.

Azerbaijan’s state energy firm SOCAR said in April that BP-led consortiums would suspend West Azeri, Chirag and Shah Deniz oil and gas platforms for a 15-day period of maintenance work in 2021. The turnaround on the West Azeri platform was completed in May. BP conducts regular maintenance works at its platforms every year.

The first production sharing agreement for developing the ACG block was signed on September 20, 1994, while a new deal on the joint exploitation of these fields and production sharing was reached on September 14, 2017. The agreement provides for the development of the areas by the end of 2049. The field started production from the Chirag platform in November 1997. Since 1994, around $40 billion of investment has been made into the development of the ACG field. ACG has also delivered about 50 billion cubic metres of associated gas in total.

Apart from BP, the project’s operator, members of the consortium are SOCAR, MOL, INPEX, Equinor, ExxonMobil, TPAO, ITOCHU and ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL).

In September, the consortium said it had produced four billion barrels of oil on the ACG that had 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 over 3.7 billion barrels of oil.