Shah Deniz gas field
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Shah Deniz gas field is the largest natural gas field in Azerbaijan. It is situated in the South Caspian Sea, off the coast of Azerbaijan, approximately 70 kilometers southeast of Bakubat, at a depth of 600 metres. The field covers approximately 860 square kilometers. The Shah Deniz gas and condensate field was discovered in 1999. It is to bring gas into Europe without having to traverse countries seen as politically unreliable such as Russia or Iran.[1]
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[edit] Ownership
The Shah Deniz field is operated by BP which has a share of 25.5%. Other partners include StatoilHydro (25.5%), SOCAR (10%), Total S.A. (10%), LukAgip, a joint company of Eni and LUKoil (10%), Oil Industries Engineering & Construction (10%), and Turkish Petroleum Overseas Company Limited (9%).
[edit] Reserves
The Shah Deniz reserves are estimates to be between 1.5 billion barrels (240,000,000 m³) to 3 billion barrels (480,000,000 m³) of oil, and 50 to 100 billion cubic meters of gas. Gas production at the end of 2005 was estimated to be approximately 7 billion cubic meters. The Shah Deniz field also contains gas condensate in excess of 400 million cubic meters.
[edit] Pipeline
The 692 km South Caucasus Pipeline, operational from the end of 2006, transports gas from the Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea, to Turkey through Georgia.
The associated condensate is commingled with the oil from the ACG field and is transported to Turkey through Georgia along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.
[edit] Recent developments
The Shah Deniz scheme started to produce gas at the end of December 2006 - three months later than expected - but was forced to close in January 2007. Azerbaijan then announced that the field had resumed output only to admit that it had been forced to shut down again with no definite date for supplies to be resumed.[2] The shutdown caused problems for Georgia, which was forced to buy emergency gas supplies from Russia at a very high price. Georgia was desperate to lose its energy - and political - dependence on Russia and Shah Deniz will allow them to do this.[3]
By July 2007 the Shah Deniz gas plant at Sangachal Terminal was fully operational and all buyers of Shah Deniz gas are were taking gas.[4]
Shah Deniz Stage 2 has now been approved. This project will include an offshore gas platform and a gas plant at Sangachal Terminal and has an estimated cost of at lest $10 billion. [5]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Shah Deniz, Rigzone website
- Shah Deniz, Offshore Technology website
- Shah Deniz and the South Caucasus gas pipeline, Statoil website
