Page 12 - FSUOGM Week 30 2019

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM
Eni closes deal for offshore Kazakh project
KAZAKHSTAN
Eni entered direct negotiations for the project earlier this month.
ENI has sealed a deal for exploration and pro- duction rights to the Abay block in Kazakhstan’s zone of the Caspian Sea, a er several months of negotiations.
Under the agreement, the Italian oil and gas major will undertake a 3D seismic survey and drill at least one exploration well at the block. It will work with local company KazMunayGas (KMG) in a 50:50 partnership.
Abay lies 60-70km o the Bozashi Peninsula in waters less than 10 metres deep. Past estimates by Kazakh authorities place its resources at 2.8bn barrels of oil, although its real potential will only be known a er drilling.
Eni rst signalled its interest in exploring the block in March, when it reached joint operating and nancing agreements for the project with KMG. It then signed a “protocol of direct nego- tiations” with the company and Kazakhstan’s energy ministry earlier this month.
Sources previously told FSU OGM that the Abay project was worth $36.5mn.
e Italian company is an important player in Kazakhstan, with interests in the flagship onshore Karachaganak and o shore Kashagan elds. It also has plans with KMG to explore the Isatay block neighbouring Abay and develop two of Kashagan’s satellite elds.
It also took a nal investment decision (FID) last year to build a 50-MW wind farm in the north-west of the country, due to start up by the end of this year. Kazakhstan has passed new laws aimed at bolstering its use of renewables – a sec- tor still in its infancy in the country.
Eni produced 76,000 barrels of oil and 237mn cubic feet of gas from its conventional assets in Kazakhstan, down from 89,000 bpd and 254mn cubic feet of gas a year earlier. ese declines were on the back of maintenance work at the Kashagan project.™
BP plans deep gas well at Shah Deniz
AZERBAIJAN
BP is yet to advance the third stage of the Shah Deniz project.
BP is preparing to sink a well next year targeting a deep gas prospect at the Shah Deniz eld o the coast of Azerbaijan, its CEO said in a quarterly results’ call on July 30.
“We have got an advanced gas project beneath the existing Shah Deniz development and we think it has multi-tcf [trillion cubic feet] potential,”BobDudleysaidwhilediscussingthe UK major’s second-quarter earnings. “And that’s currently planned to spud maybe in 2020.”
Shah Deniz is estimated to hold 1.2tn cubic metres of gas in Caspian Sea reservoirs. BP and its project partners launched the rst stage of the eld’s development in 2006, bringing out- put capacity to 10 bcm per year of gas. e sec- ond stage was commissioned in 2018, which is expected to yield an extra 16 bcm per year.
BP has been discussing plans for a third stage, targeting Shah Deniz’s deeper gas zones, for sev- eral years. But little progress has been made in advancing the project, beyond 3D seismic data collection several years ago. Experts have told FSU OGM previously that a nal investment decision (FID) on the expansion is unlikely until a er 2025.
BP is Azerbaijan’s biggest foreign investor, with an operating stake in both Shah Deniz and the country’s flagship oil project Azeri-Chi- rag-Gunashli (ACG). It is also exploring several new o shore areas.
“People say Azerbaijan is a late-life province [but] we believe there is lots of potential still there,”Dudleytoldinvestors.
According to Dudley, BP aims to sink a well at its Shafag-Asiman block this year once there is a spare rig for the work. In 2020, it will drill the rst of three boreholes at the Shallow-Wa- ter Absheron Peninsula (SWAP) area, a year later than anticipated. According to Azerbaijan’s SOCAR, the Satti rig on hire from Kazakhstan will be complete the well.™
P12
w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m
Week 30 31•July•2019