Drilling of ACE production well at Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block begins

BP, the operator of the Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Guneshli (ACG) field development project, announced that on December 4, drilling of the first production well began from the new Azeri Central East (ACE) platform.

According to BP, the well should reach a depth of 3,188 meters, which will take about three months.
The press release quotes Gary Jones, BP's regional president in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey: "We are very pleased to start drilling the first production well on the ACE platform. This will allow us to achieve the goal of producing the first oil at ACE and ensure this in early 2024. A lot of preparatory work has been done to ensure a safe and reliable drilling program using our experience, as well as an innovative approach, automated processes and advanced technologies. We hope that the first ACE production well will be drilled efficiently and on time."

The $6 billion ACE project is one of the stages in the development of the giant ACG field in the Caspian Sea.

As a reminder, ACE is a new 48-slot (48 wells) production platform located in the middle between the existing platforms "Central Azeri" and "East Azeri" at a sea depth of 137 meters.

The ACE project also includes new in-field pipelines for pumping oil and gas from the ACE platform to the existing ACG Phase 2 export oil and gas pipeline for transportation to the onshore Sangachal terminal.

Besides, there is a pipeline between the Vostochny Azeri and ACE platforms to supply pumped water from the Central Azeri compression and water heating platform to the ACE facilities.

The ACE platform and facilities are designed to produce up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day.

As is expected, up to 300 million barrels will be produced from this section of the ACG during the implementation period of the ACE project.

At the peak of construction work on the ACE project in Azerbaijan, more than 8,500 people were involved.

The importance of these works is due to the fact that oil production at ACG, the key oil—bearing block of the country, has been falling for 4 years for geological reasons.

Note that the extraction of the first oil from ACE in 2024 will prevent further decline and slightly stabilize the production of "black gold" in Azerbaijan.