BP Azerbaijan cheers biggest Shah Deniz milestone in 2021 after deepwater flank start-up

Baku, July 6 - Neftegaz.RU. The Shah Deniz field – located in the Caspian Sea offshore Azerbaijan and discovered in 1999 – is the largest gas discovery ever made by BP.
Production from this deepwater flank started up on 30 June 2021 following the successful completion of all related offshore construction and commissioning works, BP revealed today.

The new East South production flank consists of:

• 4 wells
• 2 new flowlines
• a number of subsea structures connected to the world-class Shah Deniz reservoir

It is expected that the flank will be at full production rates in the 3^rd quarter of 2021.
Gary Jones, Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey for BP, said:

• This is the biggest milestone we had planned to achieve in Shah Deniz this year
• We are very proud to have achieved it safely, on schedule and within the budget despite the challenges and restrictions caused by the covid-19 pandemic
• Following the completion of the main Shah Deniz 2 infrastructure projects and achievement of 1^st gas in 2018, the entire Shah Deniz team have been working hard to deliver new wells on the remaining flanks and start-up new infrastructure in the subsea system ramping up production from the field
• We expect the newly-started East South flank to add about 90,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to the field production using 2 manifolds and over 40 km of flowlines to the Shah Deniz 2 facilities

The 1^st phase of the field began production in 2006 delivering more than 10 billion m³ per annum (bcma) of gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

The 2^nd phase of development began production in 2018 and at plateau will add 16 bcma of gas production capacity to bring total production capacity from the field to 26 bcma of gas.

The $28 billion project was the 1^st subsea development in the Caspian Sea and the largest subsea infrastructure operated by BP worldwide.

Author: Nermina Kulovic