OREANDA-NEWS. December 25, 2008.  To resume operation of producing platform Central Azeri (Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea) halted since 17 September because of gas leakage the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) led by BP Azerbaijan has taken a range of measures aimed at increasing safety of field operations.

BP Azerbaijan reports that in the process of beginning limited oil and gas production at Central Azeri they installed safety controls and equipment for monitoring of safety conditions of operation processes.

“Currently we are conducting work for increase of production at the platform

– from use of three up to five wells and then full resumption of platform operation,” BP Azerbaijan says.

Yesterday Rovnag Abdullayev, the president of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), stated that production from three wells of the platform was resumed, production of two more oil wells was scheduled for the end of the current week and operation of Central Azeri to the full extent for next January.

Earlier industry & energy minister Natig Aliyev claimed that operation of the key producing platform could hardly be resumed before March or April 2009.

BP Azerbaijan informs that in November they managed to organize operation only of Central Azeri processing platform and water-injection wells and thereby ensure full security of works and staff at the platform.

At the same time the work on revealing and liquidating the causes of gas leakage is underway. Restoration of connection of an emergency platform with platforms on West ad East Azeri allowed increase of overall production from Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field block up to 80,000 tons of oil a day from standard level of 120,000-125,000 tons.

Earlier the SOCAR reps projected resumption of production on Central Azeri until the end of November.

In the morning on September 17 work of Central Azeri platform was suspended and its staff evacuated after revealing gas leakage in water around the platform.

In July oil production from field Azeri totaled 699,000 barrels with overall production from AIOC’s three contract fields at the level of 905,029 bpd.

AIOC did not publish data for this August as last month Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan stood idle for a long time and production volume was decreased sharply.

Since 1994 AIOC has been developing Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field block reserves of over 900 million tons of oil. In September 2008 it reached stable production of 900,000 bpd, main volume of which is produced by Azeri where three producing platforms are operating.