BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 5. A new PSA (Production Sharing Agreement) is planned to be signed on September 20, when a contract regarding the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block for the development of the Caspian Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) fields of the PSA type, called the "Contract of the Century," will turn 30 years old, an informed source told Trend.
“We are talking about a contract for the extraction of deep natural gas (Deep Gas) from the ACG block. After the signing of the PSA for Deep Gas, drilling of the first production well from the West Chirag platform will begin this year in order to obtain the first gas in the first half of the 2025 year," the source said.
Earlier, bp Vice President for the Caspian region Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli said that an appraisal well drilled from the Chirag platform into a deep reservoir on the southern flank of the ACG in 2023 has bolstered optimism about future natural gas recovery from the ACG's deep layers.
Since 1997, when extracting oil from ACG, associated gas has been automatically produced in connection with the geological production process, a small part of which is transported ashore and transferred to the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), and the main volumes are injected back into the formations to enhance oil recovery.
In parallel, the presence of deep gas in this unique block of fields has been revealed.
According to SOCAR estimates, its reserves may amount to about 100 billion cubic meters, but the upcoming well from West Chirag will make it possible to understand the volume of reserves more precisely.
“Participants in the PSA for the ACG Deep Gas block may be the same companies with the same shares as in the ongoing ACG oil contract,” the source emphasized.
ACG participating interests are: bp (30.37 percent), SOCAR (25 percent), MOL (9.57 percent), INPEX (9.31 percent), Equinor (7.27 percent), ExxonMobil (6.79 percent), TPAO (5.73 percent), ITOCHU (3.65 percent), and ONGCVidesh (2.31 percent).