Production on East South Flank of Shah Deniz to begin in 2Q21

February 4, 2021 13:34

In 2020, the Shah Deniz 2 project achieved major milestones supporting the gas production start-up from the East South Flank, Report informs, citing BP Azerbaijan.

The pipelay barge Israfil Huseynov safely completed the mechanical installation of two deep-water flowlines with a length of 18.3 km each. Flowline termination assemblies and other adjacent subsea infrastructure were successfully installed using the subsea construction vessel Khankendi.

The start-up of the deep-water East South Flank (at 540m water depth) is planned for the second quarter of 2021, following the completion of offshore construction and commissioning. The start-up of the two remaining deep-water flanks (West South and East North) is planned for future years and will support gas production plateau rates. In 2020, the Shah Deniz Alpha platform rig was on a warm stack. The Istiglal rig commenced the SDF03 subsea completion operations. The Maersk Explorer suspended the SDF05 well and commenced the SDH03 lower section drilling.

The above two rigs have already drilled 20 wells in total and completed 16 out of those for Shah Deniz 2 production and subsequent ramp-up.

The agreement on exploration, development, and shared production of the promising Shah Deniz areas was signed on June 4, 1996. The production sharing agreement was ratified on October 17, 1996.

The project participants are BP (operator - 28.8%), AzSD (10%), SGC Upstream (6.7%), Petronas (15.5%), LUKoil (10%), NIKO (10%) and TPAO (19%).