Gas production at Shah Deniz to hit peak in 2023 - BP

BAKU. Jan 26 (Interfax) - Production of natural gas at Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field will reach its peak this year, according to BP, the project's technical operator.

"We very much hope, plan that we will be able to reach peak production in Stage 2 [of the development of this field] this year," BP Vice President for the Caspian Region, Communications, and External Affairs Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli said in an interview with Azerbaijani television channel CBC.

Last year was fairly successful and productive for BP in Azerbaijan, particularly for the development of Shah Deniz, Aslanbayli said.

"Increasing gas production at the Shah Deniz field can probably be called the greatest achievement of the past year. We, in fact, exceeded target, which very happily coincided with sales of additional volumes to both Europe and Turkey. A program to further increase production is being developed. We will continue to boost production at the Shah Deniz field this year. Additional resources have been engaged for this, and operations are being optimized in order to solve issues as much as possible and in the flash of an eye in terms of drilling and in terms of operational efficiency," he said.

BP has spudded a new exploration well, SDX-8, in order to assess the gas resource potential of the deeper horizons under the current producing reservoirs in the eastern flank of Shah Deniz, Aslanbayli said.

"These are deep layers of Shah Deniz, and if our suppositions are confirmed, that is, if the results of interpreting the data from the exploration well are positive, then we can talk about additional volumes of gas," he said.

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