Baku, April 16 - Neftegaz.RU. The Azerbaijan oil and gas production increased by 2.4% and 5.2% respectively in the 1st 3 months of the year.
The volume of drilling work in SOCAR increased by 14% compared to the same period in 2017 (13% in comparison with target figures). SOCAR carried out 40.5 thousand meters of drilling work on 15 wells during this period. 13 wells were drilled additionally by SOCAR's joint ventures.
Geological and technical measures were taken in operational wells and 66 redundant wells were reactivated allowing SOCAR to stabilize the production process and produce 1.8 million tons of oil in the Q1 of 2018.
The company's total gas production in the Q1 was approximately 1.6 billion m3, an 8% increase from 2017.
In the Q1 of 2018 oil production in the country increased by 2.4% compared to a year earlier, reaching 9.7 million tons between January-March. There was a growth in gas production too, which reached 7.3 billion m3, 5.2% higher than the figures for Q1 of the previous year. The increase in production mostly occurred in March - with 5.8% in oil and 12% in gas production.
In the Q1 of this year, 5 production wells were drilled and put into operation in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field. In total , it is planned to deliver 12 production and 4 injection wells on ACG in 2018.
Shah Deniz-1 drilling work is underway, and 2 production wells are expected to be completed this year. The drilling of a well within the scope of Shah Deniz-2 is already finished. The project is expected to establish 5 production wells within a year.
Crude oil export also increased in the Q1 of the year. SOCAR exported 5.7 million tons of crude oil, increasing it by 13.3% compared to last year. The growth in oil export can be attributed to various factors including the increase of SOCAR’s share in ACG.
The total export of oil and petrochemical products made up 413,000 tons for the Q1 of 2018, a slight change from last year’s amount. This is mainly due to a 21% increase in domestic demand for diesel, despite a 6.4% increase in production, as compared to the Q1 of the last year.
