ExxonMobil and SOCAR Sign Agreement for Onshore Oil and Gas Exploration and Production in Azerbaijan
ExxonMobil and Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR have signed an agreement for the exploration and production of oil and gas onshore in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, BP is acquiring new offshore fields in the country.
According to Reuters, oil production in Azerbaijan primarily relies on mature offshore oil fields in the Caspian Sea, and the country plans to maintain oil production at around 582,000 barrels per day over the next five years through investments from Western energy companies.
Exxon’s experience in developing unconventional oil fields could help Azerbaijan increase onshore production, which currently accounts for only 5% of the country’s total oil output, and open a new chapter in Azerbaijan’s oil industry.
“In the coming years, we will be able to talk about the potential size of the resource and what the economics might look like,” said John Ardill, Exxon’s Vice President of Global Exploration.
Arzu Javadova, SOCAR’s Vice President of Geology, stated that the agreement was aimed at assessing the project’s potential, and at this stage, the companies did not plan to drill exploratory wells.
Exxon already holds stakes in Azerbaijan’s largest oil project, Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli, and in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports Caspian oil to Turkey and then on to Europe.
