BP restarts oil production at offshore platform in Azerbaijan ahead of schedule

May 13, 2024, by Melisa Čavčić

UK-headquartered energy giant BP has wrapped up planned maintenance works at one of the platforms at its giant oilfield in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Azerbaijan earlier than expected, thus, the oil production has been restored.

Following a temporary suspension of production at Deepwater Gunashli, one of the seven Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) platforms in the Caspian, which was initiated on April 25 to enable efficient maintenance, inspection, and project work to be undertaken, BP completed the planned maintenance (turnaround – TAR) activities ahead of schedule.

As these works did not take 15 days, as was originally advised, the production and export systems of the platform were restarted on May 7. As a result, the production is currently being ramped up to the level before the turnaround scope of work was kicked off.

According to BP, the work program entailed inspections and various projects, such as valve changeouts and nucleonic sources replacement, along with required repair works. The company explains that these planned events are “a necessary part of the long-term reliability, integrity, and production performance and are regularly performed in all BP-operated facilities in the region.”

The Deepwater Gunashli (DWG) complex, located on the east side of the Gunashli field at 175 meters of water depth, is the third phase of development of the ACG field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea.

With oil production ongoing since April 2008, the complex comprises two bridge-linked platforms: a 48-slot drilling, utilities, and quarters (DUQ) platform, and a process, gas compression, water injection, and utilities (PCWU) platform.

BP recently started oil production from its new 48-slot production, drilling, and quarters platform in the Caspian Sea. The ACG partners are BP (operator, 30.37%), SOCAR (25.0%), MOL (9.57%), Inpex (9.31%), Equinor (7.27%), ExxonMobil (6.79%), TPAO (5.73%), ITOCHU (3.65%), and ONGCVidesh (2.31%).

Just like other oil majors, BP saw a fall in profit in 1Q 2024 on a quarterly and year-over-year basis due to lower energy prices but the firm still managed to boost its oil production.