Azerbaijan Steps Up Oil Exploration to Offset Depleted Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli Reserves
Against the backdrop of declining production at the Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli field, Azerbaijan has signed exploration agreements with four international companies — ExxonMobil, TPAO, MOL, and Gran Tierra. The focus is on finding new onshore and offshore resources. These agreements emerged from the country’s first open tender, in which 11 companies participated. Exploration will cover underexplored areas in the central and northern parts of the country.
A Memorandum of Understanding with ExxonMobil — a minority partner in the Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli project and the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline — targets the development of shale resources in the Ganja–Yevlakh–Agjabedi area in central Azerbaijan.
Gran Tierra signed a memorandum for the Guba–Caspian region in the north of the country, while MOL signed key terms continuing a 2024 memorandum for another onshore area — Shamakhi–Gobustan. MOL holds minority stakes in the Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli and Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan projects and regularly purchases Azeri Light oil for its refineries. GL Group began drilling Azerbaijan’s first onshore horizontal well, targeting deep oil reservoirs in the Kura–Araz depression in the south of the country.
BP signed an agreement with TPAO and SOCAR, under which the Turkish company participates in the evaluation of the Shafag–Asiman gas condensate field, discovered in 2021 at a depth of around 7,200 meters — significantly deeper than the Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli fields. TPAO holds a 30% stake.
In the first quarter of 2025, production at Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli declined by only 2% year-on-year, to 331,000 barrels per day. In 2024, BP launched a five-year, $370 million seismic seabed survey program in the area, aiming to identify new reserves. BP also joined a Production Sharing Agreement for the Ashrafi–Dan Ulduzu–Aipara block, planning to open a new reservoir in the basin.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, as of January 2025, Azerbaijan’s oil reserves were 7 billion barrels, and its gas reserves were 60 trillion cubic feet.
