By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company increased both oil and gas production by 7 percent in the second quarter of 2021.

During the reported period, about 2 million tons of crude oil and 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas were produced on the fields operated directly by SOCAR.

Meanwhile, SOCAR reduced down to 14,000 meters the volume of drilling operations during the quarter, as one of optimization measures.

Moreover, the company refined more than 1.8 million tons of crude oil, which is an increase by 24 percent compared to the second quarter of 2020. In addition, the company’s gas processing plant processed 819 million cubic meters of natural gas.

Furthermore, SOCAR exported 4.2 million tons of crude oil to world markets during the reported period. It should be noted that the volume of SOCAR’s crude exports includes both oil produced on its owned and operated fields and shares of SOCAR and Azerbaijan within the international consortiums.

The country’s total gas exports exceeded 3.5 billion cubic meters, which is an increase by 17 percent.

Likewise, the export of refinery and petrochemical products total about 755,000 tons, which accounts for a 13 percent increase from the second quarter of the last year.

Additionally, nationwide natural gas production increased to about 10 billion cubic meters, while oil production slightly declined to 8.4 million tons.

In the second quarter of this year, the actual level of gas consumption was 2.2 billion cubic meters in the country.

Due to the global oil demand growth, driven by COVID-19 vaccination, OPEC+ continued easing the restrictions on production volumes for participating countries. This has led to the stabilization and growth of crude oil production at SOCAR.