OGPSS - Looking at Azerbaijan future fuel production

The President of SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, is touring the United States at the moment. His goal is, in part, to gain support for the Baku Higher Petroleum School, a place to generate the indigenous engineers that his firm needs for future resource development. (About 75% of the labor force is currently Azeri, but at lower levels of management). The school is expected to open its doors next September. While this is, perhaps a little late to the game, it underscores the global need to find those individuals who can be technically trained and who are then willing to spend weeks of their lives, at a time, in increasingly remote parts of the world, often in inclement conditions, just so that the rest of us can have an easy commute to work in the mornings. (Folks were even talking about the opportunities in the wilds of North Dakota at our Rotary meeting this week).

The effort by SOCAR also underscores the point that there remains a future for the petroleum industry in Azerbaijan, despite the long history of oil recovery that the nation has already seen, with the depletion of many of the old reservoirs. There are new fields in which oil and natural gas are being developed, though as Darwinian pointed out, the rapid build-up in production to which I referred last time, has, more recently, begun tailing off. He referred to the Joint Organizations Data Initiative – Oil (JODI) which shows the decline from 1.05 mbd in July 2010 to 920 kbd this September. That peak was down from the peak of almost 1.1 mbd in early 2008. This year the decline has reached around 11% pa and while SOCAR explains that this is the result of introducing additional safety measures following the Deepwater Horizon event, and for scheduled maintenance, the number seems a little large for such a cause.


Further if one looks at the drilling record for the country, SOCAR reports that while drilling was down last month (and likely will also be this month) overall they anticipate exceeding the 2010 figures, with roughly 90% of the work going for development and about 10% for exploration. The development drilling is down from the 2010 figure, which was itself lower than that in 2009, which was below that of 2008. But some of this may have been market driven, one can certainly see that in the natural gas numbers that I discuss below.

I had missed, when I wrote the post last week, that Jerome had previously written on the topic in 2008, my apologies to him and you for that omission. His post gave more detail of the fields off the peninsula than I had provided, so I am reproducing a figure from the post here:

Oil and gas fields off Azerbaijan (Jerome at TOD)

The recent decline in overall oil production impacts flow through the pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan (the BTC pipeline) which had a targeted flow of over 1 mbd, and much of this comes from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashi fields (there is some crude also from Turkmenistan, and condensate from Shah Deniz). IHS list it as currently the third largest oil field (behind Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar and Kuwait’s Burgan). Recent production from the complex can be obtained from the BP site:

During the first three quarters of 2011, ACG produced on average 757,500 barrels per day (b/d) (206.8 million barrels or 27.9 million tonnes in total) from the Chirag, Central Azeri, West Azeri, East Azeri and Deepwater Gunashli platforms.

At the end of the third quarter of 2011, a total of 57 oil wells were producing, while 27 wells were used for injection in the ACG field, as follows:

Chirag had 12 wells (8 oil producers and 4 water injectors), producing on average of 73,300 b/d.

Central Azeri (CA) had 19 wells (13 oil producers, 5 gas injectors and one water injector), producing on average 209,200 b/d.

West Azeri (WA) had 19 wells (13 oil producers and 6 water injectors), producing on average 213,800 b/d.

East Azeri (EA) had 14 wells (11 oil producers and 3 water injectors), producing on average 134,300 b/d.

Deep Water Gunashli (DWG) had 21 wells (12 oil producers and 9 water injectors), producing on average 126,900 b/d of oil.

Development of Chirag (EPC Engineer )

A new platform is in construction for Chirag, aimed at adding 185 kbd to current production in 2013, which with increased drilling at the other platforms (averaging about 20 wells a year) may, in the short term, bring the production back toward the 1 mbd target production. The total estimated recoverable reserve is estimated at 5.4 billion barrels of oil, of which around 1.8 billion is estimated to have been produced to date. The partnership is currently extended until 2024.

The natural gas picture is a little more complicated. Although the ACG complex produces more gas than Shah Deniz roughly 75% of it is re-injected to maintain reservoir pressure. Discounting the production from Shah Deniz, SOCAR is still producing natural gas for export to Europe, for which it is still being paid on average $191 per 1,000 cu m (kcm) ($5.40 per 1,000 cu.ft or million Btu approx) this year (though down to $151 in October). These prices are significantly higher than the $61 per kcm it received last year, and are also ahead of the $186 price in 2009, though just under the 2008 average.

They are undercutting the price of Russian gas, which they report as being some $446 per kcm this year, though it is anticipated to fall to $415 next year. (In perspective Ukraine is currently paying $400 per kcm, ($11.33 per kcf) for Russian gas, but hoping to get that price lowered).

SOCAR is anticipating that this market may dry up in three years when the gas fields off Cyprus are brought into production. This will be gas from the Aphrodite gas field, which holds some 3.3 Tcm of natural gas – about three times the reserves for Shah Deniz. That area of the Mediterranean is, however, quite politically sensitive.

Together with other fields (Leviathan and Tamar), this area of the Mediterranean is estimated to have 10 trillion cu m of gas. In connection with the worsening political and military situation fields Leviathan, Tamar and Block 12 have been patrolled by Israeli drones. Russia sends its only aircraft carrier to this area, while fleets of other countries claiming to develop these fields are drawing as well.

These new fields lie in the Levant Basin Province, and, given this location and the neighborhood, who will end up producing what is going to be an interesting development to watch. Given the size of the deposits, their development could also change the economics of natural gas distribution for some time.

Location of the Levant Basin Natural Gas Province (Fast Company )

SOCAR is hoping that, as this transpires, it may get additional supplies from Turkmenistan through a trans-Caspian pipeline that could be completed by 2015. Concurrently Shah Deniz II, slated to produce some 100 kbd of oil and 16 bcm of natural gas, is being prepared for production to start in 2017.

In short, in the short term production of oil from Azerbaijan will continue at roughly current levels, but the volumes of gas that will be available on the global market may exceed demand within the near future unless, as now, they significantly discount the price.

OGPSS - an initial look at Baku and Azerbaijan

“The Prize”, itself a prize-winning history of oil written by Daniel Yergin covers the growth of the oil industry around the world, and begins with the start of the industry in the United States. But right behind those early chapters comes the story of Russian oil. This is not surprising since between 1898 and 1901 Russia and America roughly split global production of around 500,000 bd between them, with Russia out-producing the United States on occasion (as it does again now). That Russian oil is Russian no longer, since the early oilfields were found on and off the Aspheron Peninsula in what is now Azerbaijan. (It was annexed by Russia initially in 1813 by Alexander 1). The first well was drilled in 1847, after decades of recovering the oil from hand-dug pits, and there has been ongoing activity there ever since. By 1904 the Baku region was producing 73 million barrels a year, although production began to decline after that. And with the loss of much of its male population with the revolution, it took a long time to recover. Yet it had rebounded to be strong enough that this oil from the Baku reservoirs was considered a critical factor in governing many battles of the Eastern Front in Second World War.

Azerbaijan sits in a region of states that run along the southern Russian border, and which hold the promise of holding some of the last large deposits of fossil fuel that have yet to be fully developed.

Location of Baku, and Azerbaijan (Google Earth)

The first fields to be developed were the onshore Balakhany, Sabunchi and Ramany in 1871 with the coastal field of Bibi-Eybat being developed in 1873. Such was the nature of prospecting at the time, and the multiplicity of oil-bearing layers in the ground that oil still remains to be found and recovered. It has been estimated that the fields initially held around 8 billion barrels of oil (John Grace) but that while a billion of this was within range of early technology, the rest waited for the more advanced western technologies to arrive, and sometimes it didn’t.

As a result, within the last year, new wells have been sunk in these old fields. One at Balakhany is aimed to be 3,200 ft deep, with a target production of 28 barrels a day, Most of the production was produced following the Russian Civil War and in the lead into World War 2. In 1913 production was at 206 kbd, but fell to 81 kbd by 1921, and then slowly built until the region was producing 622 kbd by the start of WW2.

Balakhany today (Alexander Zaitchik )

The older fields no longer have the reserves to justify the investment of the large capital equipment associated with modern technology, but their history describes the wealth that they produced before the first World War, first for the Nobel family, and then for the Rothschilds. Baku oil also underwrote the career of Mr “Five Percent” Calouste Gulbenkian. Daniel Yergin notes that it was the need to replace expensive British coal that led Russia to use oil first in ship bunkers on the Black Sea, and then to fuel the railway engines across Russia. However production continued to fall from the original wells at Baku, Royal Dutch/Shell had bought out the Rothschilds, yet in the period just before WW1 Russia’s export market share had dropped below 10% as the shallow fields ran out. Of course this was also the time that Stalin was learning his trade as an organizer/agitator in the Baku fields., though it was not until 1920 that the Bolsheviks took Baku and nationalized the oil industry.

Azerbaijan remains, however, with the fields off the peninsula, the source of a growing percentage of global production. Because of that it is where the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipeline begins. The BTC pipeline carries up to 1.2 mbd of oil to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean where it can be loaded into tankers.

Path of the BTC pipeline (Central Asia-Caucasus Institute)

To meet this, and other demands the re-growth of the oil industry in Azerbaijan has, within the last decade, raised production from 283 kbd to more than 1 million bd.


The most productive of these fields lies 62 miles east of Baku, in the Caspian, where the complex of fields known as the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field lies. The complex is believed to hold 9 billion barrels of oil, though these are only a few of the fields found in the region. Yet there is a world of difference between how these fields are being developed with modern equipment and investment and the fate of the older fields.

The oilfields of Azerbaijan (Offshore Technology )

It is here also that the Shah Deniz field, with 22 Tcm of natural gas and 750 mb of oil can be found.

The region has thus not only had, but continues to have significant fossil fuel reserves. Production this year averaged 989 kbd to date, with $19 billion in exports of 715 kbd. This is up from last year, but down from the 2009 figures.

As the volume of oil available has increased, so the market for Azeri oil has also grown. Azerbaijan began exporting oil to India this year, and already sends some to China. It plans on sending oil to Czech and Ukrainian refineries and to Slovakia, to the tune of around 15 million barrels a year. The diversion of more to countries of the Former Soviet Union is something that has caught OPEC attention, and they note, in their November MOMR that the booming Russian economy is increasing internal demand, with a consequent cost to exports, to the tune of around 100 kbd growth in demand in the FSU to 4.2 mbd.

FSU oil demand change (y-o-y) in kbd for selected countries (OPEC November MOMR )

In terms of natural gas production the IEA projects that this will grow from a current 17 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year to 50 bcm by 2035, much of this to come from the second phase of the development of Shah Deniz.

In this regard it should be remembered that there are three main oil pipelines that carry oil out of Azerbaijan and while the BTC carries the majority, the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline (B-N) carries 7% of the exports to the Black Sea Russian port of Novorossiysk , and the Baku-Supsa pipeline carries 14% of the total feeding oil to the Georgian port of Supsa, with a capacity of 145 kbd. The flows from Azerbaijan to Russia, via the B-N pipeline have been fluctuating all year, but on average have fallen over 12% from last year.

Average monthly flow in the pipe from Azerbaijan to Russia (News.AZ )

It may be that, in the same way that Russia used to play with demand for gas from Turkmenistan, they are now playing the same game of cutting back demand in order to force lower prices. However as with the Chinese pipeline to Turkmenistan, the BTC pipeline from Baku provides other customers so that prices may now be maintained – and with them support for the local governments. (The Azerbaijan government now has a strategic reserve of $41 billion).

P41. Pickpoints

Half-a-dozen or so stories of interest:

The Washington Post has a lead story on the damage that the drop in oil prices has caused to the budgets of nations, and the delays that it is causing to energy projects. Interestingly at the bottom of the article is a note that, as well as Russia (which was a story in P40) Petrobras also got a loan, in this case $10 billion, from China in return for guarantees of supplies. China will get between 100,000 and 160,000 bd this year. The announcement was apparently not supposed to happen until May.


Energy Secretary Chu is having a bit of a rough week.

For the second day in a row he indicated that the activities of the OPEC oil cartel are not one of his — or his department's — priorities. . . . . He said he would look into it "to figure out what the U.S. position should be and what the president's position is." "I'm not the administration, quite frankly," he said.

This has now been followed by

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that remark reflected "more of my naivete than anything else" and he would encourage Opec members to promote "stability" in crude oil prices.

There is a podcast and, listening to it, his remarks were more directed toward the loan guarantee program. On being asked how the nation could double renewable output in 2 years, he said that wind is most mature, solar thermal then PV may also contribute. Numerous wind projects can go forward . He cited Bonneville Power as one who will put in lines to connect to turbines being installed within 2 years. There is Wind in Dakotas; solar thermal in 100’s of Megawatts but those are the areas. He anticipates going out into the market to find what the industry wants to bring forward, transmission isn’t there yet (maybe not until 2014). Haven’t reviewed the CCS projects yet, there is FutureGen, but it needs tech review before it can progress. Wants pre-combustion separation and post combustion separation. Oxyburn is also to be looked at. It is not a slam dunk which tech is best, so he wants to carry out a suite of potential solutions. 6 geological sites are going to be tested for CCS, Wants also to look at EOR but all this has to be tested. Money in capture and in sequestration. He sees power transmission as a national issue, combining renewable energy and being able to port it around the country.

Azerbaijan says it has enough natural gas to supply the Nabucco pipeline. One of the most promising of their deposits has been the Azeri-Chirag-Gyuneshi (ACG) deposit, but due to production problems this has not met target, and the country is projecting, after years of growing production, that this year it may only stabilize at last years levels. At the OPEC meeting in December Azerbaijan (who does not belong) offered to cut their production by 300,000 bd from 840,000 bd. Rigzone hears that there is not much enthusiasm for more OPEC cuts at their next meeting, though they think that the market is still oversupplied by about 1.6 mbd.

Exxon has returned 8 leases at Point Thomson to Alaska, just after they agreed to drill on two leases and start production before 2014. There has also been an oil spill up at Prudhoe Bay, but because the spill was under the snow its size is still being determined. Protestors who are arguing that directional drilling should not be used to tap into the oil in ANWAR after Senator Murkowski had suggested the idea will no doubt be rejuvenated.

Iceland thinks that there may be oil in the Dreki area, based on seismic information. The area is offshore and northeast of Iceland.

More stories can be found at The Energy Bulletin and Drumbeat at The Oil Drum.