Total Vice President Flew to Baku to Discuss Absheron Project

Baku/09.12.19/ Turan: The infrastructure for the delivery of gas from the Absheron field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian will be ready in 2021.

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan’s press release on the meeting of SOCAR’s head Rovnag Abdullayev with the French Vice President of the oil and gas giant Total, Arnaud Breuillac, on production issues said the parties discussed successes achieved under the Absheron gas condensate field development project.

According to SOCAR, during the meeting on December 6 in Baku, the parties noted that drilling at the Absheron field carried out by the Heydar Aliyev semi-submersible floating drilling rig has already been completed.

The drilled production and appraisal well ABD-001 with a depth of 7,411 meters became the deepest in the Caspian Sea. The parties also agreed that the joint operational company JOCAP, engaged in the implementation of the project, will continue to manage the Absheron project in the future.

“As part of the Absheron field development project, all submarine equipment designed to transport products extracted from the field to the shore has been delivered to Azerbaijan at present. The field’s infrastructure will be connected to the receiving platform at the Neft Dashlary field (located on the SOCAR balance sheet), from where the produced gas and condensate will be sent to land. The completion of all installation work and the start of production in Absheron is scheduled for 2021,” the press release says.

"Absheron is one of the largest gas condensate fields in Azerbaijan and the largest discovery of Total in the last 10 years," said Breuillac, whose words are quoted in a press release.

Abdullayev noted that the main condition for the development of any field and the sale of extracted products is the availability of infrastructure. According to him, at present, due to the presence of the Southern Gas Corridor, Azerbaijan is able to bring products from various fields to international markets. “This is an important aspect that affects the commercial advantage and profitability of Absheron and other field development projects,” the head of SOCAR said.

* The PSA type contract for the Absheron structure was signed on February 27, 2009. Currently, the project participants are SOCAR (50%) and Total (50% - operator).

In the summer of 2011, the French company announced the discovery of a gas condensate field with reserves of 350 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas and 45 million tons of condensate.

On November 21, 2016, SOCAR and Total signed an agreement on determining the main contractual and commercial conditions of the first stage of field development.

Absheron is located 100 km from Baku at a depth of 500-600 meters.

The drilling of the first production and appraisal well ABD-001 began in May 2018. In the framework of the first Phase, it is planned to produce annually 1.5 bcm of gas and more than 3.6 million barrels of condensate from the field. All gas produced in the framework of the first stage will be directed to the domestic market of Azerbaijan. –0