SOCAR (the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic) is operating on the Shafag-Asiman block at the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, head of the company Rovnag Abdullayev said at a meeting with BP head Robert Dudley, Trend reports.
SOCAR and BP signed a contract for 30 years. The exploration period will take 4 years and can be prolonged by 3 more. Two boreholes will be drilled at the first stage and two more at the second. Exploitation will be joint. Each side has a 50% share.
The contract was approved by the Azerbaijani Parliament.
Shafag and Asiman are located 125 km south-east of Baku. SOCAR and BP signed a memorandum on mutual understanding and joint development of the two areas in London in 2009.
Exploration will be held at a depth of 650-800 meters and a reservoir at 7,000 meters.
Preparations for the second stage of Shah Deniz are being held. The field has about 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
A contract on development of Shah Deniz was signed on June 4, 1996. The deals involves BP (operator - 25.5%), Statoil (25,5%), SOCAR (10%), LUKOIL (10%), NICO (10%), Total (10%) and TPAO (9%).
BP is one of the main foreign investors in Azerbaijani oil industry. It develops the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field and operates the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Supsa pipelines.
