bp has published a draft environmental and socio-economic impact assessment document for the Shah Deniz Compression project in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
This involves construction of a new offshore compression platform to increase production and processing of gas from the Shah Deniz field.
It will be installed in 85 m water depth, 3 km from the existing Shah Deniz Bravo platform and 10 km from the Shah Deniz Alpha (SDA) platform. It will also provide compression of gas exports for these two established facilities.
In an operations update, bp added that it had completed the SDA power project, initiated in 2022, late last year, allowing the SDA platform to receive its power supply directly from the Bravo platform 8 km away via a subsea power and fiber optic cable.
This set-up replaces the five diesel generators that had powered SDA since its start-up, and should lead to higher availability of its power supply and lower running costs.
Work continues on the Shah Deniz 2 development, with the Istiglal and Heydar Aliyev rigs so far drilling 21 wells: five on the North flank, four on the West flank, four on the East South flank, five on the West South flank and three on the East North flank.
Analysis continues of data obtained in 2023 from target reservoirs of the SDX-8 exploration well, the goal being to appraise the deeper reservoirs underlying the currently producing Shah Deniz layers.
Offshore ACG field updates
At the West Chirag platform, part of the bp-operated ACG field complex, drilling is underway of an initial well into the field’s NAG reservoirs, thought to hold up to 4 Tcf of in-place gas. The well is also designed for appraisal purposes, and it should go onstream late in 2025.
Last October 2024, bp deployed its first pressure coring acquisition in the ACG field; the operation was conducted in the BaIakhany VIII formation through a West Azeri well.
Four fully pressurized core samples were recovered, with all fluids captured and preserved in their in-situ condition. These have since been sent to a laboratory for analysis.
