Oil & Gas News

RUSSIAN GAS SUPPLIES SUSPENDED

According to a SOCAR source, president Natiq Aliyev left for Moscow Thursday to attend to the problems surrounding Russian gas supplies to Azerbaijan, which commenced early November but were suspended after 10 million cubic meters had been transported.

The halt is believed to have been caused by the fact that Russian "Itera" had not declared the gas to Russian customs.

SOCAR president is also expected to talk over the issue of payment for the supplies. One of the alternatives under consideration is payment in the form of Azeri oil supplies through the Northern pipeline.

OIL PRODUCTION AND REFINING FETCH 70% OF REVENUES

In January-October 2000, economic entities earned the profit of 1,780,000,000,000 manats and lost 410,000,000,000 manats. 70% of the income fell on oil production and refining.

As compared with 1999, profit growth rate has exceeded 50%, which was largely (91%) due to oil industry, construction and transport.

RUSSIA WANTS OIL FOR GAS

According to a competent source, one of the key objectives of the visit by Russian President`s Caspian status negotiator Viktor Kaliuzhny to Baku was to talk over the issue of Azeri oil transportation through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline. Results of the negotiations are said to be under discussion at the Cabinet of Ministers.

Russia appears to be trying to resolve the problem by exchanging gas it is supplying to Azerbaijan for Azeri oil.

AIOC TO HIKE OIL AND GAS OUTPUT

The AIOC is planning to hike oil output from Chirag by 15% next year and gas production by 30% since February, the AIOC president David Woodward told President Aliyev during a presentation ceremony of bp`s activities in Azerbaijan.

In response to the discontent voiced by President Aliyev regarding poor gas supplies from the AIOC, Mr. Woodward explained that it was due to certain operations on the platform. He said normal production had resumed since November 13.

According to Mr. Woodward, another stage in the development of Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) had commenced. The fields are expected to give 40 million tons of oil a year by the year 2008.

$2.2 billion will be spent on Phase-1 of the Full Field Development of ACG. Since August 2001, this stage envisions construction of a platform on Azeri field and installation of drilling equipment, dwelling quarters and pipelines for oil and gas transportation to the shore. Besides, $1 billion will be spent to drill 8 wells, the AIOC president said.

In regard to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Mr. Woodward said the AIOC, together with SOCAR, would be looking for additional investors to finance the MEP.

"At the same time, we are in talks with various banks and international financial institutions", he said.

BURIAL GROUND FOR DRILLING CUTTINGS READY

BP has completed construction of a special burial ground in Garadagh district to bury cuttings from exploratory and production drilling. From now onwards, drilling cuttings and associated wastes will not be dumped into the Sangachal bay, but taken to the burial ground, BP co-director Faiq Asgarov told an ecological round-table Tuesday.

According to him, the company is also determined to stop discarding reservoir waters into the Caspian in the future.