BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 21. The Shah Deniz consortium has effectively commenced construction works under the Shah Deniz Compression project, bp-Azerbaijan’s head of press service, Tamam Bayatly, told Trend.
She noted that the construction of the topside modules has been entrusted to Azfen, a joint venture between the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and Tekfen Construction.
“Recently, the company began the initial metal-cutting operations to construct the topsides. At the same time, within the framework of the Shah Deniz Compression project, and to carry out offshore operations, three major contracts were signed with the Saipem/BOS Shelf joint venture. This company will execute all subsea infrastructure works under the project. It will build a new subsea pipeline approximately 26 kilometers long, connecting the new platform to the existing infrastructure. Once ready, the platform will be transported offshore and installed by Saipem/BOS Shelf,” Bayatly said.
She underscored that a singular contractual agreement is pending
execution, pertaining to the foundational support structure of the
platform.
“We will disseminate this information prior to the conclusion of
the fiscal year.” Consequently, all principal agreements pertaining
to the Shah Deniz Compression initiative will be finalized, and the
associated operations will commence,” she elaborated.
The $2.9 billion Shah Deniz Compression (SDC) initiative represents
a pivotal phase in the evolution of the expansive Shah Deniz gas
reservoir, strategically engineered to harness and extract
low-pressure gas reserves within the field while optimizing
resource recovery efficiencies.
The project is expected to enable around 50 billion cubic meters of additional gas and approximately 25 million barrels of additional condensate production and export from the Shah Deniz field.
The project involves the installation of a new compression facility—an electrically powered unmanned compression platform, or Normally Unattended Installation (eNUI). It will be installed in 85 meters of water depth, approximately 3 kilometers from the existing Shah Deniz Bravo (SDB) platform.
With four 11-MW compressors onboard, the SDC platform is designed to serve as a host facility for gas compression from both the Shah Deniz Alpha (SDA) and SDB platforms, meaning that before flowing to the Sangachal terminal onshore, export gas from the platforms will be compressed at SDC.
The project also includes several associated facilities to be installed offshore in the Shah Deniz contract area and additional brownfield works to be undertaken at SDA, SDB, and the Sangachal terminal.
Construction activities are planned to be completed in 2029 to be ready to receive the first gas for compression from the SDA platform in 2029 and from the SDB platform in 2030.
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