BP Began Drilling the First Production Well from a New Platform at ACG
BP-Azerbaijan announced the start of drilling the first production well from the new Central East Azeri (CEA) platform in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
“Drilling of the first production well from the CEA platform began on December 4,” the company said in a statement.
According to the company, the depth of the well will be up to 3188 meters. In total, drilling will take about three months.
“We are pleased to begin drilling the first well on the CEA platform. This will allow us to get first oil from it in early 2024,” said BP regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Gary Jones, whose words are quoted in the message.
As previously reported, over the 9 months of 2023, ACG produced a total of 100 million barrels (14 million tons), which is 12.3% less than the 9 months of 2022.
The CEA project is the next stage in the development of the ACG block. As part of the project, it is planned to drill 48 wells, which will be carried out by TURAN Drilling Company.
The goal of the CEA project is to achieve daily peak production of up to 100 thousand barrels of oil and 350 thousand cubic feet of gas by drilling additional wells and installing additional offshore facilities.
On April 19, 2019, in Baku, shareholders of the ACG field development project signed a final investment decision on the CEA project worth $6 billion, of which about $3.2 billion are construction costs, the rest are development costs, including drilling new wells.
The project involves the construction of a new production and drilling platform with a housing block between the Central Azeri and East Azeri platforms at a sea depth of 137 meters.
The contract for the development of the Azeri, Chirag and deepwater Gunashli fields was signed in 1994.
Oil and associated gas production from the ACG block began in November 1997. Currently, the share of British BP (project operator) is 30.37%, SOCAR (25%), Hungarian MOL (9.57%), American ExxonMobil (6.79%), Indian ONGC Videsh (2.31%), Japanese Inpex Corp. (9.31%) and ITOCHU Oil (3.65%), Norwegian Equinor (7.27%), Turkish TPAO (5.73%).
