BP New Ventures In Caspian Sea
With the new settlement over the Caspian Sea, BP is planning to launch a two years exploration and drilling program in Azerbaijan’s sector of the Caspian Sea to confirm if there are new oil and gas reserved to be extracted. This was confirmed by a spokesperson from BP in Baku to Eurasianet.
BP is planning this year to drill four new exploration wells in three separate blocks, that might hold substantial gas reserves, they also going to conduct seismic surveys of a fourth block that also might hold oil or gas.
Bp is planning three more explorations in 2020 per Tamam Bayatli a spokesperson. It also cautioned that all explorations wells are only exploratory, but it doesn’t guarantee any commercial volumes of oil and gas will be discovered.
But Azerbaijani officials and BP have predicted that some of the fields might hold a substantial reserve of gas based on seismic survey of one of them. The Shafag-Asiman block could possibly hold up to 500 billion cubic meters of gas.
If those projects are done outside of the blocks it could be the second-largest gas field discovered in the Caspian Sea, behind only the Sha Deniz field and its estimated 1.2 trillion billion cubic meters of gas.
Azerbaijan and Brazil are becoming the focus for the next few years per Gary Jones BP regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. It is a significant program for us, which demonstrates the confidence and the role that we see in the Caspian. BP potentially could “take this source of supply of gas well into the middle of the century per Jones statement.
The Shallow Water Absheron Peninsula Block located 30 km southeast of Baku will have two wells drill this year. A third well planned this year is int eh Shafag-Asiman block in deeper water about 125 km southeast of Baku.
BP is continuing to conduct seismic survey of Block D230 a deep-water area 135 km north of Baku with a first exploration in 2020.
It is significant and the dividend from those discoveries could be extremely beneficial for both BP and Azerbaijan