BP-Azerbaijan: Forecast on production has not changed

Baku. 15 October. REPORT.AZ/ The forecast on production for Azerbaijan this year has not changed, Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, BP’s Vice President for Communications, External Affairs and Strategy, said on Monday.

He also spoke about Block D230 with the agreement ratified by the Azerbaijani parliament last week, and noted that seismic works will be carried out in this block.

According to him, this process will take a while: "Once ratified, the agreement should be signed by the President and published in press. The agreement enters into force after BP receives SOCAR’s official letter. Later on, seismic works commence. Following completion of seismic works, a decision is made where the exploration well will be drilled. This will take a while’.

The Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) on joint exploration and development of Block D230 in the North Absheron basin in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea was signed in April in London, in the presence of UK Prime Minister Theresa May and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, by Rovnag Abdullayev, President of SOCAR, and BP group chief executive Bob Dudley.

Block D230 lies some 135 kilometres (84 miles) north-east of Baku in the Caspian Sea. It covers an area of some 3,200 square kilometres and has not previously been explored. It has water depths of 400-600 metres and anticipated reservoir depths of about 3,500 metres. Under the PSA, which exists for already 25 years, BP will be the operator during the exploration phase holding a 50 per cent interest while SOCAR will hold the remaining 50 per cent interest.

The signing of the PSA follows the Memorandum of Understanding for exploration of Block D230, which was agreed in May 2016.