NOV. 28 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan produced 2.2% less oil in the first 10 months of the year compared to the same period in 2011, official data showed. Gas production also dropped. Azerbaijani officials have heaped most of the blame onto BP which is managing the under-performing Azeri-Chirag- Guneshli Caspian Sea field.
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(News report from Issue No. 115, published on Nov. 30 2012)
NOV. 21 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – A senior official at SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state energy company, hinted that the BP-lead group developing the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) field in the Caspian Sea would be expected to invest more cash into the project to maintain production, media reported. Azerbaijan has complained about below-expected production rates at the field.
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(News report from Issue No. 114, published on Nov. 23 2012)
OCT. 24 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The head of Azerbaijan’s state energy company Socar, Rovnag Abdullayev, said there were no plans to drop BP as the operator of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev had criticised BP earlier this month for disappointing production figures from the field.
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(News report from Issue No. 110, published on Oct. 26 2012)
OCT. 18 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP transferred 10 senior engineers to Azerbaijan to help boost production at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil field it operates in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, Bloomberg news agency reported. Earlier this month, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev publicly blamed BP for declining production at ACG which came on-stream in the mid-2000s.
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(News report from Issue No. 109, published on Oct. 19 2012)
OCT. 10 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a government meeting broadcast on TV, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev blamed BP for declining oil production from fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
Such a public and unequivocal rebuke is virtually unprecedented in Azerbaijan’s recent energy history and it will sting.
BP is the dominant foreign oil company operating in Azerbaijan. Other fields are due to come on stream in the next decade but at the moment the key operations are the Shah Deniz gas field and the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) fields.
Mr Aliyev said that “grave mistakes” by BP had triggered a 12% reduction in ACG’s oil production this year and cost Azerbaijan $8b in lost oil revenues over the past three years.
BP, which owns about 36% of the field, has not given a reason for the decrease in oil production but, in response, said it was committed to both ACG and working in Azerbaijan.
The start of production at ACG had been greeted with great excitement but anticipated production of 1m barrels of oil a day quickly evaporated.
Now, the challenge is to maintain output at a far more modest 700,000 barrels of oil a day and to appease the all-powerful Mr Aliyev.
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(News report from Issue No. 108, published on Oct. 12 2012)
OCT. 2 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – US energy company ConocoPhillips will sell its stake in the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan’s energy minister Sauat Mynbayev, told reporters. The sale gives the Kazakh government the chance to buy a larger stake in the giant oil field.
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(News report from Issue No. 107, published on Oct. 5 2012)
SEP. 24 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP needs to invest billions to slow declining oil production at its fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, Reuters reported, quoting diplomats and oil executives. The article suggested it may not be commercially viable to pour the extra cash into the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli fields.
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(News report from Issue No. 106, published on Sep. 28 2012)
SEP. 14 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has started preparations to construct an oil refinery near the Caspian Sea, media reported. The refinery will be Turkmenistan’s third and have an initial capacity of 3m tonnes of crude oil a year. A feasibility study is being prepared and construction work could start in 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 105, published on Sep. 21 2012)
SEP. 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a $1b deal, ONGC Videsh, the overseas investment arm of India’s state-owned energy company ONGC, bought nearly 3% of the Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli (ACG) group of oil fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea and a similar size stake in the Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 104, published on Sep. 14 2012)
AUG. 16 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Upgrade work to extend the life-span of oil fields operated by the BP-lead Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) caused production to drop by 11.6% to a five year low in the first half of 2012, media quoted company officials as saying. AIOC accounts for most of Azerbaijan’s oil production.
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(News report from Issue No. 101, published on Aug. 17 2012)