Both ACG and Shah Deniz are operated by international consortiums led by BP and provide significant revenue for the former Soviet country, though BP has had to work hard in recent years to counter ACG’s dwindling reserves.

A BP-led consortium last week said that it produced an average of 535,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil at ACG last year, totaling 26 million tonnes, down slightly from 584,000 bpd, or 29 million tonnes, in 2018.

Natural gas from the Shah Deniz offshore field was 16.8 billion cubic meters (bcm) and condensate output was 3.5 million tonnes, up from 11.5 bcm of gas and 2.5 million tonnes of condensate in 2018.

“Both gas and condensate production will continue to ramp up,” Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, BP’s vice president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, told Reuters.

He said that daily production and Shah Deniz’s Alfa platform was 22.5 million cubic meters (mcm) and “this will remain stable”, while the field’s Bravo platform had been producing 33.5 mcm per day and “this will continue to ramp up throughout the year”.

Aslanbayli said the consortium’s drilling at Shah Deniz II would extend for the next few years until production reaches a plateau of 16 bcm of gas and 120,000 bpd of condensate.

BP continues works on slowing the natural decline at ACG, which is currently off plateau, and Aslanbayli said that the new $6 billion Azeri Central East (ACE) project will help to offset lower output from ACG.

“The new platform will be technically advanced and will use automation to drive efficiency,” he said.

Aslanbayli said that ACE is expected to deliver about 300 million barrels of oil by 2049.

He said that BP’s other projects in Azerbaijan in 2020 include ongoing exploration drilling at the Shafag-Asiman offshore block as well as 3D seismic acquisition on block D-230 and plans to begin drilling at the Shallow Water Absheron Peninsula (SWAP) exploration area.

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