President of Azerbaijan Announces New Gas Projects in Azerbaijan

Baku/19.05.17/ Turan: Foreign companies show interest in our oil and gas projects Babek and Garabagh. Such a statement was made by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev yesterday at the opening ceremony of the floating semisubmersible drilling rig (SSDR) of the 6th generation near Baku.

According to him, a contract was previously concluded for the Karabakh field, which was later annulled. However, now, the President noted, "both we and foreign companies see that there are more reserves in the Karabakh deposit than previously thought."

According to the Babek project, on January 21, 2017, SOCAR signed a Risk Services Contract with the company Umid, Babek Exploration & Production. On May 2, the country's parliament approved the contract. Apparently, this contract is still open to foreign companies, so the President stressed about their interest in the project.

As for the Karabakh project, on March 14, 2017 the Norwegian company Statoil presented to the Azerbaijani Energy Ministry a report on the results of research into the exploration and development of the offshore fields Dan Ulduzu, Karabakh and Ashrafi. Statoil Manager for Azerbaijan Karsten Stoltenberg said in the talk with Energy Minister Natig Aliyev that despite the company's withdrawal from the Shah Deniz development project, Statoil is a participant in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field development project.

In addition, according to K. Stoltenberg, there is an opportunity for long-term cooperation between Statoil and Azerbaijan on the fields of Dan Ulduzu, Karabakh and Ashrafi.

He said that since 2012 the Norwegian company began work on studying these areas, in 2014 an appropriate agreement with SOCAR was signed and as a result of the application of modern technologies results were obtained that are more significant in comparison with the results of studies of the late 90s.

Turan IA managed to find out that the Azerbaijani side expressed its desire to agree about these deposits with foreign companies that will offer the most attractive conditions. It is in the interests of Azerbaijan that foreign companies not only conduct the development of previously discovered deposits, but also conduct exploratory work on the proposed sites. One of the options under consideration assumes conducting exploratory works on the structure of Aypara, which is located near these deposits.

* The Karabakh field was discovered in 1998 with reserves of 20 bcm of gas and 20 million tons of condensate. It is located 120 km east of Baku and 23 km north of the Azeri field. The depth of the sea varies from 140 to 180 meters. In the period 1996-1999, the total cost of the project was $128 million. The operator of the project was the American Pennzoil.

The Ashrafi field with reserves of 13 bcm of gas and 17 million tons of condensate was discovered in 1999. It is located 105 km northeast of Baku, west of the Karabakh field. The depth of the sea in the area of ​​the deposit varies from 160 to 180 meters. The operator of the project was the British-American alliance BP-Amoco.

The Dan Ulduzu field is located west of the Ashrafi field, 85 km from Baku. The depth of the sea within the structure varies from 80 to 120 meters. In 1998-1999, two exploration wells were drilled to a depth of 3,100 meters. The first well opened a reservoir of hydrocarbons, both gas and condensate, however in small volumes. The second well was empty. The exploration project Ashrafi and Dan Ulduzu was invested $100 million. -12D