BP’s operations in Azerbaijan run smoothly, Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, BP’s vice-president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, told Trend news agency.
“I am proud to say that in these exceptionally challenging times and under these unprecedentedly difficult conditions we have tried to do all we can so that our people are safe and healthy and, secondly, our operations run smoothly, safely and in an uninterrupted way. We all know perfectly well what uninterrupted production and export of oil and gas mean for the country and the region in such difficult times,” he said, pointing out that BP continues to drill its first exploration well on the Shafag-Asiman block and intends to complete it by the end of this year. “We also plan to start drilling the first exploration well in shallow waters of Absheron as soon as the upgrade of the drilling rig is completed. We hope that this will also be possible by the end of this year. We completed our first 3D seismic survey program on D230 earlier this year, and now we intend to accelerate the processing and interpretation of the acquired data using our supercomputer in Houston,” he said.
BP’s vice-president went on to add that the construction of ACE (Azeri Central East) – the new platform for Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli is also continuing. Despite the impacts of the pandemic on the construction activities, the company’s plans for the first ACE oil in 2023 remain unchanged, he noted.
Aslanbayli, who has recently been appointed as BP vice-president for communications and advocacy for Middle East and Caspian, noted that BP will continue its efforts to optimize its learning and development programs in Azerbaijan.