BP Azerbaijan company plans to suspend gas output at the Shah Deniz platform in 2017 due to technical-preventive, repair and adjustment work at the Sangachal terminal, Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, communications, external affairs, strategy & region vice president at BP Azerbaijan, reported.
In 2017 it is planned to carry out repair and adjustment work on a section of the Sangachal terminal, which receives products from the Shah Deniz, the existing installations and connection of new installations as part of the second stage of the field’s development, Aslanbayli said.
“The period of the suspension will be determined later. We try to conduct preventive measures at all our facilities once in two years”, he added.
The work will affect the terminal’s part that is connected to the South Caucasus pipeline, due to which the gas export to Georgia and Turkey will be suspended, the vice president said.
He also said that it would be included in the plan of actions and budget for 2017, which was to be approved.
The suspension won’t affect the annual volume of output at the Shah Deniz, Aslanbayli noted.
“The tendency of output increase is being observed at the field”, he said adding that in 2016 gas output would be slightly higher than in 2015.
The company believes that there definitely won’t be any decline in 2017, he noted.
Aslanbayli went on to say that preventive measures hadn’t been planned yet for 2017 at the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of oil and gas fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
BP is the operator of development projects of the Shah Deniz and ACG.
The contract for development of the Shah Deniz offshore field was signed on June 4, 1996.
The field’s reserve is estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. (Trend/Business World Magazine)