BP starts-up Shah Deniz 2

The Shah Deniz 2 gas development in Azerbaijan has come onstream on time and on budget, and made its first commercial gas delivery to Turkey. The $28bn, BP-operated project is the first subsea development in the Caspian Sea and the largest subsea infrastructure operated by the company worldwide. It is also the starting point for the Southern Gas Corridor series of pipelines that will for the first time deliver natural gas from the Caspian Sea direct to European markets.

Shah Deniz 2 is BP’s largest new upstream project in 2018 and, following the Atoll development in Egypt, is the second of six project start-ups expected for the year. This string of developments will follow seven major project completions in 2017 and is key to delivering the 900,000 boe of new production that the company expects from new upstream major projects by 2021.

At plateau, Shah Deniz 2 is expected to produce 16bn cm/y of gas. Together with output from the first phase of development, total production from the Shah Deniz field will reach 26bn cm/y of gas and up to 120,000 b/d of condensate.

The Shah Deniz 2 project includes 26 subsea wells, 500 km of subsea pipelines and flowlines, and two new bridge-linked platforms. Gas is transported onshore thorugh an 85 km pipeline to the Sangachal terminal near Baku, which underwent a major expansion to accommodate the new increased gas output. The project also includes the new South Caucasus pipeline expansion - 428 km of new pipeline in Azerbaijan and 59 km in Georgia, inlcuding two new compressor stations - carrying Shah Deniz gas to Turkey.

The development is a major milestone in the creation of the new Southern Gas Corridor which, once completed, will transport Caspian gas directly into the heart of European markets for the first time. From the South Caucasus pipeline, gas is transported across Turkey through the new Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), which was inaugurated earlier this month, and, when complete, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will supply gas as far as Greece, via Albania and on to Italy. Commercial deliveries to Europe are expected to commence in 2020.

The Shah Deniz consortium comprises BP (28.8%, operator), TPAO (19%), Petronas (15.5%), AxSD (10%), SGC Upstream (6.7%), Lukoil (10%) and NICO (10%).

Shah Deniz Bravo platform
Source: BP