
Azerbaijan Oil
Contracts

 Azeri, Chirag and Gunashli
David Woodward, President
(as of January 1, 1999)
Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), a consortium of 10 major international
oil companies and SOCAR, is developing the Azeri, Chirag and
deep-water portion of Gunashli fields in the Azerbaijan sector
of the Caspian Sea. Their 30-year Production Sharing Agreement
(PSA) was signed on September 20, 1994, ratified by Parliament
on December 2, 1994, and went into effect on December 12, 1994.
The contract area has estimated reservs of more than 4 billion
barrels of oil.
During the past 3.5 years, the
company has succeeded in achieving the world's best safety record
in delivering a fast track, world-scale project. The company
began oil production from its newly refurbished Chirag-1 platform
on November 7, 1997, an event which was officially celebrated
by the Azerbaijan government on November 12, 1998, with a number
of high-ranking foreign government, state officials and delegations
participating.
 Map: Click to enlarge
The main part of the Early Oil Project has been concluded
which included the refurbishment of the Chirag-1 platform, the
construction of a new onshore terminal at Sangachal and a 230
km subsea pipeline system, and the rehabilitation of two existing
export pipelines to transport Early Oil to the Black Sea north
through Russia to Novorossiysk and west through Georgia to Supsa.
The Russian route has been operational since last year and the
first tanker lifted 80,000 tons of AIOC-produced oil on March
24, 1998. AIOC plans to lift 2-3 tankers per month for the remaining
months of 1998 to total 1.5 million tons this year. Meanwhile,
the second Early Oil Export Pipeline (via Georgia) is still under
refurbishment, and work continues on selecting the ultimate Main
Export Pipeline.
Participating companies include:
BP,
Unocal, LUKoil, Statoil, ExxonMobil, Pennzoil, ITOCHU, TPAO, Delta Hess and SOCAR
AIOC
Villa Petrolea, 2 Neftchilar
Prospect (Bayil), Baku
Tel: (994-12) 97-90-00, 97-97-54
Fax: 97-96-02, 97-97-37
bayatltf@bp.com
www.baku.bpweb.bp.com
From Azerbaijan International (6.2) Summer 1998.
© Azerbaijan International 1998. All rights reserved.
Socar
Contracts
Back to Index
AI 6.2
(Summer 1998)
AI
Home |
Magazine
Choice
| Topics
| Store
| Contact
us
|