BP begins Shah Deniz 2 development in Azerbaijan

By Gulsen Cagatay

ANKARA (AA) - BP announced Monday the start of the company and its partners' landmark Shah Deniz 2 gas development located in the Caspian Sea offshore Azerbaijan, including its first commercial gas delivery from the project's second phase to Turkey.

According to the statement, BP operates the $28 billion project, which is the company's largest gas discovery ever made, its largest subsea infrastructure worldwide, and the company's first subsea development in the Caspian Sea.

The project is also the starting point of the Southern Gas Corridor series of pipelines that will for the first time deliver natural gas from the Caspian Sea directly to European markets.

BP group chief executive Bob Dudley said the Shah Deniz 2 is one of the biggest and most complex new energy projects anywhere in the world, comprising major offshore, onshore and pipeline developments.

"BP and our partners have safely and successfully delivered this multi-dimensional project as designed, on time and on budget," he said.

"The new pipeline provides a gateway for new supplies of energy into Europe," the statement read.

"Discovered in 1999, the giant field was estimated to hold approximately 1 trillion cubic meters of gas and covers approximately 860 square kilometers, roughly the same size and shape of Manhattan Island. The first phase of field development, Shah Deniz 1, began production in 2006 and currently supplies gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey," BP emphasized.

In addition, at peak, the Shah Deniz 2 development, which was sanctioned in 2013, supported more than 30,000 jobs in Azerbaijan and Georgia and in total included over 180 million hours of work.

The Shah Deniz consortium consists of BP as operator with a 28.8 percent interest; TPAO with 19 percent; Petronas with 15.5 percent; AzSD with 10 percent; SGC Upstream with 6.7 percent; Lukoil with 10 percent and NICO also with 10 percent.