Shafag-Asiman ( Azerbaijani: ''Şəfəq və Asiman'') is a large complex of offshore geological structures in the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...

located southeast of

Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

. The Shafag and Asiman structures have been previously called D8 and D10, respectively.

History

The memorandum of understanding (MOU) for exploring the Shafag-Asiman structures was signed on July 13, 2009. According to the initial agreement, the offshore block will be jointly developed by BP and

State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (), largely known by its abbreviation SOCAR, is a fully state-owned national oil and gas company headquartered in Baku, Azerbaijan. The company produces oil and natural gas from onshore and o ...

(SOCAR). The MOU was signed by the President of SOCAR,

Rovnag Abdullayev Rovnag Ibrahim oghlu Abdullayev (; born 3 April 1965 in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan) is an Azerbaijani politician who was the longstanding CEO of SOCAR, Azerbaijan's state-owned oil company from 2005 to 2022. During his tenure, SOCAR was widely chara ...

and Chief Executive of Exploration and Production of BP,

Andy Inglis Andrew G. Inglis (born 1960) is a British engineer, corporate executive and CEO of Kosmos Energy. Background Inglis received an MA in engineering from Pembroke College, Cambridge University and joined BP plc in 1980. He is a Chartered Mecha ...

in the presence of

President of Azerbaijan The president of the Republic of Azerbaijan is the head of state of the Azerbaijan, Republic of Azerbaijan. The Constitution of Azerbaijan, Constitution states that the president is the embodiment of Executive (government), executive power, co ...

Ilham Aliyev Ilham Heydar Oghlu Aliyev (born 24 December 1961) is an Azerbaijani politician who has been the fourth president of Azerbaijan since 2003. He is also the leader of the New Azerbaijan Party since 2005. The son and second child of former Aze ...

and former

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister Advice (constitutional law), advises the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, sovereign on the exercise of much of the Royal prerogative ...

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...

. The MOU was followed by signing of Heads of Agreement on basic commercial principles on joint exploration and development of the fields by Rovnag Abdullayev and President of BP Azerbaijan, Rashid Javanshir, on July 6, 2010, during the visit of the President of BP,

Tony Hayward Anthony Bryan Hayward (born 21 May 1957) is a British businessman and former CEO of the oil and energy company BP. He replaced the Baron Browne of Madingley on 1 May 2007. His tenure ended on 1 October 2010 when he was replaced by Bob Dudle ...

, to Azerbaijan. The

production sharing agreement Production sharing agreements (PSAs) or production sharing contracts (PSCs) are a common type of contract signed between a government and a resource extraction company (or group of companies) concerning how much of the resource (usually oil) extra ...

for development and exploration of Shafag-Asiman block covers a period of thirty years with potential extension of up to five more years. The first two exploration wells will be drilled within the next four years with possible extension of exploration works for three more years. All costs for exploration works will be covered by BP. Development of the Shafag-Asiman block is considered by some as extension of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) project, operated by BP. Exploration works are expected to start in the second half of 2016 and continue through the second half of 2017.

Reservoir

The offshore block covers an area of nearly which have never been explored before. The fields are located in a deepwater section of close to with a reservoir depth of about . The initial reserves are estimated to be about 500 billion cubic meters of gas and 65 million tons of condensate. The 2D geophysical surveys previously conducted at block indicate that these deeply laying structures may contain big amounts of gas. The 3D-seismic study in three stages is being carried out by ''Caspian Geophysical'' under BP contract. The first phase will be completed in 2011; the second data processing phase in 2012 and the third data interpretation phase in the first half of 2014.

References

{{coord missing, Azerbaijan Natural gas fields in Azerbaijan Energy in the Soviet Union Caspian Sea BP oil and gas fields

History

Reservoir

See also

References