Baku News

18 July 2007 - Upstream OnLine - UK supermajor BP plans to carry out construction work at its Central Azeri platform on the Caspian Sea Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field in September, reducing oil production from the facility, it said today. The 250,000-barrel-per-day platform, pumps oil into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline leading to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. "In September, there's some fairly major construction going on at Central Azeri," said Toby Odone, a BP spokesman. "There will be an impact on production, but I'm not aware of any significant impact on export flows." The work is part of the BP-led consortium's plan to raise output from the fields to 1 million bpd and some maintenance will take place while the construction is carried out. BP did not say how long the work would last. A trader of Azeri crude told Reuters the platform would probably be down for about 15 days and the impact on exports will become clearer when the September loading schedule is released in early August. Supplies of Azeri Light crude through the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline are expected to average about 730,000 bpd in August, little changed from July, an industry source said.