Azerbaijan’s SOCAR remains upbeat on oil production notwithstanding a 5.5 million tonne shortfall on forecasts for the year.
BP’s maintenance and improvement programs in Azeri offshore fields are expected to add 1 million barrels per day to production over the next few years.
“BP has informed SOCAR (Azeri state energy company) about planned maintenance at Chirag platforms on July first, and now at Azeri platforms in October-December in advance,” a source at SOCAR told Reuters.
Azeri oil exports will fall to multi-month lows in November and December as BP puts Caspian Sea platforms on maintenance work in a move that will further tighten already scarce supplies of light and sweet crude grades to Europe.
Maintenance, for up to 15 days each, will be conducted at three platforms of the Azeri oil field, part of Azerbaijan’s giant Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) Caspian oil field, which combines three fields.
The ACG project is the main source of crude for the pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan via Georgia.
Output at the Chirag oil field was halted for two weeks for maintenance in July, resulting in suspension of output at 80,000-85,000 barrels per day.
The former Soviet republic said last week its oil production in 2011 could total 46.0 million tonnes, below an initial forecast of 51.5 million tonnes and less then 50.83 million tonnes produced in 2010.
