SOCAR-КBR awarded contract from BP to reduce carbon footprint in Azerbaijan

A joint venture of KBR, a giant US engineering company, and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) - SOCAR-KBR - has been awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract from BP Exploration to develop the Shah Deniz Alpha (SDA) platform in Azerbaijan, Report informs referring to KBR.

“KBR has been working in the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey region since 1993, which gives us unrivaled expertise with on- and off-shore greenfield and brownfield assets,” said Jay Ibrahim, president of KBR Sustainable Technology Solutions.

SOCAR-KBR will work to maximize local execution and significantly reduce SDA’s overall carbon footprint and increase operational efficiency to provide a robust, long-term, high-availability power supply.

SOCAR-KBR will be responsible for the FEED services for decommissioning the existing five main power generators on the SDA platform. They will also create a power supply from the KBR-designed Shah Deniz Bravo platform.

The workforce for the SOCAR-KBR team will feature 95 percent Azerbaijani engineers as well as specialist subject matter expert support provided from KBR’s London operations.

“Our SOCAR-KBR joint venture allows us to combine KBR’s proven tools, systems, procedures and project track record in the region with SOCAR’s operations knowledge and experience in the energy sector,” Jay Ibrahim added.

The contract for the development of the Shah Deniz field was signed in Baku on June 4, 1996 and ratified by the parliament on October 17 of the same year. The equity participation of the parties in the contract is currently as follows: BP (operator, 29.99%), SOCAR and its subsidiaries (21.02%), LUKOIL (19.99%), NICO (10%), TPAO (19%).

Gas production from the Shah Deniz field began in December 2006.

Gas production from the Shah Deniz field is carried out from the Alpha Platform within the framework of Stage 1 and from the Bravo platform within the framework of Stage 2.

In 2021, BP Azerbaijan produced 23 billion cubic meters of gas from the Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, which is 27.1% more than in 2020. In the first quarter of 2022, some 6 billion cubic meters of gas were produced from the field, which is 17.6% higher than in January-March 2021. The Shah Deniz field also produced approximately 9 million barrels of condensate (1 million tons), up 15.4% from the first quarter of 2021.

Currently, the field’s production capacity is approximately 72 million cubic meters per day, or over 26 billion cubic meters per year.