Azerbaijan to increase oil & gas production by 2024

By Azernews

By Rasana Gasimova

Oil and gas production accounts for a large share of Azerbaijan’s GDP. The country is expected to increase its oil and gas production by 2024.

Thus, Azerbaijan’s oil production will see a 2.3-percent-increase in 2023 compared to 2019, while gas production will increase by 34.8 percent in 2023 compared to 2019, according to updated government forecasts.

In 2019, oil production will amount to 37 million 752,300 tons. This is a 2.7 percent decline compared to the results of 2018. In 2020, oil production will amount to 37 million 712,800 tons (a 0.1 percent decline compared to 2019). This will be followed by a 1.4-percent-incrase in 2021, when oil production will reach 38 million 246,200 tons. According to the estimates, the oil production will increase by 0.7 percent in 2022 to amount to 38 million 520,600 tons, and in 2023 - 38 million 634,400 tons (a 0.3 percent increase).

Thus, oil production in Azerbaijan will reach 38 million 634,400 tons by 2024 and show an increase of 2.3 percent.

As part of the agreement with OPEC, Azerbaijan has reduced daily production of oil by 20,000 barrels since January, 2019.

As to the gas production, Azerbaijan is an important supplier of natural gas in the Caspian Sea region, particularly to European markets and the country continuously increases its gas exports.

The country’s gas production will increase to 47 billion 436.4 million cubic meters by 2024.

In 2019, gas production is expected to amount to 35 billion 183 million cubic meters. This is a 16.8 increase compared with the figure for 2018. According to forecasts, Azerbaijan will actively increase gas production in 2020-2023.

In 2020, production is expected to reach 37 billion 820.3 million cubic meters (a 7.5 percent increase compared to 2019), in 2021 the figure will reach 42 billion 833 million cubic meters (a 13.2 increase compared to 2020), in 2022 - 45 billion 579.6 million cubic meters (a 6.4 increase), and in 2023 - 47 billion 436.4 million cubic meters (a 4.1 increase).

Thus, gas production in Azerbaijan in 2023 will increase by 34.8 percent compared to 2019.

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Energy reported that the average daily oil production in the country in September 2019 amounted to 755,000 barrels.

Every day, 560,000 barrels of crude oil, 68,000 barrels of condensate and 6,200 barrels of oil products were exported.

Azerbaijan has a large number of oil and gas fields and promising structures in the Caspian Sea. One of them is the block of oil and gas fields “Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli” (ACG), proven oil reserves of which are estimated at 1.2 billion tons, while gas reserves-350 billion cubic meters.

Another large field is the Shah Deniz gas condensate field, reserves of which are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. Within the second stage of field development, the volume of gas production can be increased to 24 billion cubic meters per year, according to forecasts.

TANAP pipeline delivers Azerbaijani gas to European markets and is a part of Southern Gas Corridor project that envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz-2 gas field to European markets.

The main components of the project are Shah Deniz Stage 2, expansion of the South Caucasus pipeline Baku-Georgia-border with Turkey, construction of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) from Turkey’s eastern border to the western border and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) connecting Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea in southern Italy.