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FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM
BP hires Azeri-Turkish JV for ACG platform
AZERBAIJAN
The contractors have 38 months to complete the facility.
UK supermajor BP has hired a joint venture between Azerbaijan’s national oil company (NOC) SOCAR and Turkish construction rm Tekfen to fabricate a seventh platform at the Caspian Sea’s Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oil project.
Under its contract, worth $486.3mn, the JV, called Azfen, will construct and assemble top- sides at the Azeri East Central (ACE) production and drilling platform, Tekfen said on August 29. ACE’s $6bn development was sanctioned by BP and other project partners in April.
e platform, weighing 17,000 tonnes, will be positioned at the Azeri oil eld between the operating East Azeri and Central Azeri rigs. It will feature 48 well slots, capable of producing up to 100,000 barrels per day of oil at peak capac- ity. is will help BP manage declining output at ACG, which has already fallen from a peak of 835,000 bpd in late 2010 to 584,000 bpd last year.
Tekfen said it had 38 months to nish the facility, which BP intends to launch in 2023. e Turkish contractor has a 40% interest in Azfen, while Socar has 60%. e pair set up the rm in
the late 1990s.
Tekfen noted that this would be the sixth plat-
form it has taken part in building in Azerbaijan. It also said it was eager to expand its geographical reach.
“We aim to extend our expertise in o shore platform construction beyond the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Basin and also to the North Sea,” Tekfen’s general manager Mustafa Kopuz explained. “Very large gas deposits have been discovered o Egypt, with Israel starting o shore operations ,and the need to renew existing plat- forms in the North Sea o ers signi cant business potential.”
BP operates ACG with a 30.4% stake, while its partners include SOCAR with 25%, US Chevron with 9.6%, Japan’s Inpex with 9.3%, Norway’s Equinor with 7.3% and US ExxonMo- bil with 6.8%. Turkish Petroleum, Japan’s Itochu and India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) also own shares. Together the investors agreed in late 2017 to extend their production-sharing agreement (PSA) for the elds until 2039, unlocking billions more dollars in oil recovery.
Lukoil slashes Uzbek gas output for repairs
RUSSIA
Lukoil owed 13.4 bcm fof gas from its two Uzbek projects last year.
LUKOIL has had to curb production at its two major gas projects in Uzbekistan so that repairs can take place, the Russian oil company’s vice-president Pavel Zhdanov told investors in a conference call on August 29.
Output at the Southwest Gissar project is at 5mn cubic metres per day below its plateau as a result of the maintenance, Zhdanov said, noting that Lukoil’s Uzbek partners were unable to say when the repairs would be nished.
Southwest Gissar consists of seven gas elds in Uzbekistan’s south-eastern Kashkadarya region, and is operated by a joint venture between Lukoil and the country’s national oil company (NOC) Uzbekne egaz (UNG). Production at the project slumped 19% quarter on quarter to 159,000 bar- rels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in the three months ending June 30, according to Zhdanov. Meanwhile, Lukoil’s Kandym gas development owed only 60,000 boepd in the period, down by 19%, the executive said.
Together the two projects produced more than 13.4bn cubic metres of gas for Lukoil in 2018.
Lukoil is Uzbekistan’s biggest oil and gas investor, producing more gas than any other operator apart from UNG. But the company has su ered several operational headaches this year.
In March Malaysia’s KNM Group said it had sued Lukoil, seeking to claim $96mn for unpaid
work it had carried out at Southwest Gissar. at month the Russian company con rmed it was also owed $600mn by UNG, a er agreeing to sell some of its gas to the Uzbek company for domestic use. Under its production-sharing agreements (PSAs) for Southwest Gissar and Kandym, Lukoil is allowed to export most of their gas to China.
Higher gas output in Uzbekistan was nev- ertheless a key factor behind Lukoil’s improved financial performance in the second quarter. e company is also eyeing new opportunities in the Central Asian state, noting in its quarterly results that it would continue assessing commer- cial prospects at blocks in the country’s north. It was o ered the sites by Uzbek authorities earlier thisyear.
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