BP Exploration (Caspian Sea) Limited is the operator on behalf of the Contractor Parties to the ACG Production Sharing Agreement.
In the first quarter of 2025, bp and its co-venturers spent about $115 million in operating expenditure and about $251 million in capital expenditure on ACG activities.
During the first quarter, the 4-dimensional (4D) high-definition ocean bottom node seismic programme on ACG progressed with the processing of the data acquired in 2024 and preparations to commence data acquisition for the second year in May.
Production
During the quarter, ACG continued to safely and reliably deliver stable production. Total ACG production for the quarter was on average about 331,000 barrels per day (b/d) (about 30 million barrels or 4 million tonnes in total) from the Chirag (21,000 b/d), Central Azeri (87,000 b/d), West Azeri (76,000 b/d), East Azeri (43,000 b/d), Deepwater Gunashli (54,000 b/d), West Chirag (25,000 b/d) and ACE (25,000 b/d) platforms.
On 18 February, ACG celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first oil production from the Central Azeri platform, achieving a total production of 1.1 billion barrels (152 million tonnes) of oil from this platform.
At the end of the first quarter, 145 oil wells were producing, while 44 were used for water and eight for gas injection.
Drilling and completion
In the first quarter of 2025, ACG drilled two oil producer wells, with one already completed. In addition, one gas injector well was drilled in the first quarter.
Associated gas
During the quarter, ACG delivered an average of around 11 million cubic metres per day of ACG associated gas to the state of Azerbaijan (0.9 billion cubic metres in total), primarily at the Sangachal terminal but also to SOCAR’s Oil Rocks facility. The remainder of the associated gas produced was re-injected for reservoir pressure maintenance.
Non-associated gas (NAG)
On 20 September 2024, SOCAR together with bp and other ACG co-venturers announced the signing of an addendum to the existing ACG production sharing agreement (PSA) to progress the exploration, appraisal, development of and production from the NAG reservoirs of the ACG field. The NAG resources of ACG are believed to be significant, with up to 4 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of recoverable volumes.
In accordance with the addendum, SOCAR and ACG co-venturers are now planning the next steps for the development of NAG reservoirs. As part of this, an initial well has been drilled to access two priority reservoirs. The well is important as it will also deliver appraisal through production which is expected to underpin future development plans.
The well has been drilled from the existing West Chirag platform, with first gas production expected in late 2025, following the finalization of all completion and subsea tie-in activities.
In the first quarter of 2025, oil and gas from ACG and Shah Deniz continued to flow via subsea pipelines to the Sangachal terminal.
The daily capacity of the terminal’s processing systems is currently 1.2 million barrels of crude oil and condensate, and about 81 million standard cubic metres of Shah Deniz gas, while overall processing and export capacity for gas, including ACG associated gas is around 100 million standard cubic metres per day.
During the quarter, the Sangachal terminal exported around 52.3 million barrels of oil and condensate, all of which was sent through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
Gas is exported via the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), including the SCP expansion system and via Azerbaijan’s pipelines connecting the terminal’s gas processing facilities with Azerigas’s national grid system.
On average, around 73.3 million standard cubic metres (about 2,589 million standard cubic feet) of Shah Deniz gas was sent from the terminal daily during the first quarter of 2025.
In the first quarter of 2025, BTC Co. spent $32 million in operating expenditure and $13 million in capital expenditure.
Since the 1,768 km BTC pipeline became operational in June 2006 till the end of the first quarter of 2025, it carried a total of more than 4.5 billion barrels (about 598 million tonnes) of crude oil loaded on 5,932 tankers and sent to world markets.
In the first quarter of 2025, about 54 million barrels (7 million tonnes) of BTC-exported crude oil was lifted at Ceyhan and loaded on 70 tankers.
The BTC pipeline currently carries mainly ACG crude oil and Shah Deniz condensate from Azerbaijan. In addition, other volumes of Caspian regional crude oil and condensate (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, other SOCAR volumes produced in Azerbaijan) continue to be transported via BTC.
In the first quarter of 2025, bp and its co-venturers spent around $726 million in operating expenditure and around $213 million in capital expenditure on Shah Deniz activities, the majority of which was associated with the Shah Deniz 2 project.
Production
During the quarter, the Shah Deniz field continued to provide gas to markets in Azerbaijan (to SOCAR), Georgia (to GOGC), Türkiye (to BOTAS), BTC in multiple locations and to buyers in Europe.
In the first quarter of 2025, the field produced around 7 billion standard cubic metres of gas and about 1 million tonnes (around 8 million barrels) of condensate in total from the Shah Deniz Alpha and Shah Deniz Bravo platforms.
The existing Shah Deniz facilities’ production capacity is currently about 76.4 million standard cubic metres of gas per day or approximately 27.9 billion standard cubic metres per year.
The Shah Deniz 2 project
In the first quarter of 2025, Shah Deniz 2 achieved the start-up of the fifth well on the West South flank and progressed with the subsea execution scope on the remaining wells.
The subsea construction vessel Khankendi continued to provide life of field support covering services, surveys and interventions across all of the Shah Deniz 2 and ACG subsea producing assets. The single vessel strategy continued to be implemented in the region, with the Khankendi serving as the main vessel for all offshore construction, installation, inspection, maintenance and repair works, as well as for emergency response activities, making bp’s and its partners’ operations in the Caspian safer and more efficient.
The Shah Deniz 2 activities, including the delivery of the remaining wells within the project, remain the primary mission for the Khankendi. To ensure the efficient utilization of the vessel and the drilling rigs, an integrated schedule has been developed to optimize activities and accelerate well start-up dates.
Drilling
During the first quarter of 2025, the Shah Deniz Alpha platform rig was in rig reactivation mode.
The Shah Deniz 2 project progressed with the wells programme activities using the Istiglal and Heydar Aliyev rigs. During the quarter, the Istiglal rig delivered the re-completion of the SDF02 well and started de-completion of the SDF04 well on the West South flank. The Heydar Aliyev rig completed the drilling of the SDD05 well on the West Flank and commenced the drilling of the SDH04 well on the East North flank.
In total, 22 wells have been drilled for Shah Deniz 2. These include five wells on the North flank, five wells on the West flank, four wells on the East South flank, five wells on the West South flank and three wells on the East North flank.
In the first quarter of 2025, the SCPC spent around $18 million in operating expenditure and $6 million in capital expenditure in total.
The SCP has been operational since late 2006, transporting Shah Deniz gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye. The expanded section of the pipeline commenced commercial deliveries to Türkiye in June 2018 and to Europe in December 2020.
During the quarter, the daily average export throughput of the SCP was 60.8 million cubic metres of gas per day.
On the Shafag-Asiman offshore block, evaluation of the hydrocarbon resource encountered in the first exploration well (SAX01), as well as planning of future activities are ongoing.
On 20 September 2024, bp and SOCAR signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) announcing bp’s intention to join existing agreements on two exploration and development blocks in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. These are the Karabagh oil field and the Ashrafi-Dan Ulduzu-Aypara exploration area (ADUA). Discussions regarding bp's access to these blocks continued in the first quarter of 2025.
At the end of the first quarter of 2025, the number of bp’s Azerbaijani national employees was 2,398 including fixed-term employees.
Since mid-2018, 90% of bp Azerbaijan’s professional staff has been nationals. Non-professional staff of bp in Azerbaijan is 100% nationalized.
bp will continue its efforts to optimize its learning and development programmes and will actively participate in public and private sector initiatives contributing to the development of the local talent market.
The success of projects in the Caspian region depends, in part, on the operators’ ability to create tangible benefits from these projects for the people of the region. To achieve this, bp and its co-venturers continue to implement major social investment projects, which include educational programmes, building skills and capabilities in local communities, improving access to social infrastructure in communities, supporting local enterprises through provision of access to finance and training, support for cultural legacy and sport, as well as technical assistance to public institutions.
In the first quarter of 2025, bp and its co-venturers in the bp-operated joint ventures spent more than $0.4 million on social investment projects in Azerbaijan. During the quarter, this included 16 ongoing educational projects and one capacity-building and enterprise development programme.
In addition, in the first quarter, bp alone spent more than $0.2 million on various social and sponsorship projects in Azerbaijan.
These included 13 ongoing educational initiatives, one capacity-building and enterprise development programme, five environmental initiatives, as well as three conferences and workshops on various themes – in total 22 projects.
For more information about bp and its co-venturers’ social investment projects please visit the bp Azerbaijan website at www.bp.com/azerbaijan.
Tamam Bayatly at bp’s press office in Baku.
Telephone: (+994 12) 525 58 95