Output from BP's Azeri oil projects edges down to 31.3 mln T
BAKU (Reuters) - Production at BP-led oil fields in Azerbaijan edged down to 31.3 million tonnes last year, from 31.5 million tonnes in 2014, BP-Azerbaijan said on Monday, contributing to a fall in the country's total output.
Declines at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) fields, which account for most of Azerbaijan's oil output, have raised concern in the former Soviet republic.
BP said that the consortium spent about $760 million in operating expenditure and $1.9 billion in capital expenditure on ACG activities in 2015.
The company added that 296 million barrels of oil and condensate had been exported from the Sangachal terminal in 2015, down slightly from the 298.5 million barrels exported the previous year.
Azerbaijan's crude oil and condensate production in 2015 fell by 0.8 percent year on year to 41.7 million tonnes, the State Statistics Committee said in January, after planned maintenance suspended output at a number of fields.
Output started to decline in May last year as BP suspended operations at one platform in the Caspian Sea, West Azeri, for 22 days of planned maintenance.
BP suspended operations at another platform, Chirag, on Nov. 10. Production resumed after the planned maintenance on Dec. 11.
Natural gas output from the Shah Deniz offshore fields in Azerbaijan was 9.9 billion cubic metres (bcm) last year, the same as the previous year.
Shah Deniz is developed by a group of investors including BP and Azeri state energy company SOCAR. It is estimated to contain between 1.2 trillion and 1.5 trillion cubic metres of gas.
Shah Deniz I has been pumping gas since 2006 and gas from its second stage is expected to reach Europe by 2019/20.
Azerbaijan's natural gas production rose to 29.7 billion cubic metres (bcm) last year, from 29.4 bcm a year earlier.
BP said that the Shah Deniz consortium had spent about $482 million in operating expenditure and $4.37 billion in capital expenditure last year.
(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova and Margarita Antidze; Writing by Margarita Antidze and Maria Kiselyova; Editing by David Goodman)
