BP will maintain same level of production this year in 'Shah Deniz' field

Baku. 11 February. REPORT.AZ/ 'Shah Deniz' continues its good production delivery. In 2015, the field provided reliable deliveries of gas to markets in Azerbaijan, Georgia, the BTC [Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan]Company and Turkey. The field has been producing at the Stage 1 plateau level over the past few years including 2015 in which BP produced around 10bn m³of gas and 2.3 million tonnes of condensate. In 2016 BP expect production from the Shah Deniz field to continue at this same high level. 

Report informs BP’s Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, Gordon Birrell said in his interview with The Natural Gas Europe.

BP’s future gas plans for the Caspian are currently focused on developing the next tranche of gas from Shah Deniz Stage 2. It is a huge project, which will deploy subsea production technology in the Caspian and will use advanced drilling solutions to produce wells at some of the world’s highest rates. Specifically, Shah Deniz Stage 2 is set to have 26 production wells at depths of over 6,000 metres. Nine of these wells have already been drilled. These wells will produce 16bn m³ of gas per year, which will be delivered to markets across Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and South Eastern Europe. Moreover, the Shah Deniz Stage 2 will be the cornerstone of the Southern Gas Corridor linking Caspian resources directly with the European gas market for the first time. In terms of timeline, we are targeting to deliver first gas to Turkey in 2018 and expect to get this new source of Caspian gas to Europe by 2020.

On drilling, Drilling performance in both Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) and Shah Deniz is a success story. Given that the Caspian basin represents some of the toughest drilling challenges in the industry, delivery of these difficult wells has required people and technology capable of tackling these challenges.

To date BP has safely drilled around 190 wells in this challenging drilling environment.

Specifically on Shah Deniz, drilling challenges in that field are related to its location in deeper waters than ACG - up to 550m - and the high pressures encountered in the reservoir.

BP safely and efficiently drilled 145 kilometres on Shah Deniz including the deepest exploration well of 7,300m depth to-date drilled in the Caspian.