BAKU

Azerbaijan has produced 586,200 barrels per day (bpd) of oil in September in line with the country’s obligations under the OPEC+ deal, the Energy Ministry said.

As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted production as well as demand for oil, OPEC+, a group of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allied producers of which Azerbaijan is a member, cut output by a little more than 7 million bpd to support prices and reduce oversupply. Other former Soviet oil-producing countries, Russia and Kazakhstan, are also OPEC+ members.

In April 2021, members of the group agreed to ease cuts gradually by 350,000 bpd in May, another 350,000 bpd in June and around 450,000 bpd in July.

In July, OPEC+ ministers decided to increase total production from August by 400,000 bpd every month and later by another 400,000 bpd from October. It has been made amid a rising number of COVID-19 infections across the world and firm prices on oil markets.

The new deal agreed earlier this month envisaged a further increase by another 400,000 bpd “until the parties agree to lift the restrictions”, but Azerbaijan’s oil production would still be below 718,000 bpd produced in October 2018, when members of OPEC+ agreed to reduce oil production gradually.

The ministry said that oil production in September was below the country’s quota under OPEC+ commitments at 634,000 bpd and down from 596,100 bpd produced in August.

Production of oil and gas condensate was 703,100 bpd.

“Azerbaijan is fulfilling its obligations on oil production within the framework of the OPEC+ deal,” the ministry said in a statement.

Most of Azerbaijan’s oil production comes from the giant offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oilfields, developed by a BP-led consortium. The country uses the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline via Georgia and Turkey to export oil from the ACG. It also exports oil through the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline via Russia, the Baku-Supsa pipeline via Georgia and by rail in Georgia.

BP said this month that oil output at its projects in Azerbaijan declined to 468,000 bpd in the first half of 2021 from 498,000 bpd a year earlier.

Azerbaijan reduced total oil and gas condensate production by 1.6 percent year-on-year to 23.05 million tonnes in the first eight months of this year.

In 2020, Azerbaijan produced 34.585 million tonnes of oil and gas condensate, while natural gas output was 36.713 billion cubic metres (bcm).