New giant oil-producing project to be likely launched in Azerbaijan in 2009

At present, the American KBR company is designing the COP. The American company will design new platform to be installed in the ACG. KBR has designed all previous phases of the development of the Azeri-Chiraq-Gunashli fields.

New Chirag Oil Project (COP), which calls for increasing oil output in the Azeri-Chiraq-Gunashli fields, will start up in 2013 according to the BP official Web site.

The COP, which envisages processing platform to be installed between Chirag-1 and DWG platforms, will enable to increase daily oil production in ACG up to 100,000 barrels. It is reckoned that the new Chirag Oil Project (COP) will add more than 300 million barrels of crude oil to the pipeline during the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) period.

The COP will consist of a new 48-slot drilling. The new platform design will be based on the previous successful platforms at ACG. It will be constructed based on the model of East Azeri platform.

The project will use existing infrastructure such as the offshore 30-inch oil export lines and 28-inch gas export lines plus the processing equipment at Sangachal.

The oil reserves of the project are estimated at 331 million barrels. As many as 28 producing wells and 17 pressure wells will be drilled from a new platform. The construction of the new platform is expected to end in 2013. The oil production will be launched in Q3 of 2013.

Advance boring is performed with Dada Gorgud floating drilling unit to speed up realization of the project.

Installation of new platforms in the ACG is important for the development of the Balakhany Svita. Two more platforms must be constructed for this purpose. One of the platforms will cover Chiraq and Deep-Water Gunashli and second - West, East and Central Azeri.

BP aims to build new platforms to expand project of full-scale development of Azeri-Chiraq-Gunashli via oil production from new layers including Balakhany Svita.

The company also plans to maintain high oil production via additional production from new layers. The completion of platform in Chiraq in 2013 will secure production of 100,000 barrels of oil per day and will prolong stable production term by one year. The construction of a new platform in Azeri in 2015 is expected to yield the same results.

/Trend Capital/