BAKU

Azerbaijan’s crude oil production has been limited to 610 barrels per day (bpd) in June and 620,000 bpd in July, according to quotas confirmed at the OPEC+ ministerial meeting, part of a collective response by oil producing countries to address the drop in demand for oil, the country’s Energy Ministry said.

OPEC+ is a group of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allied producers, which includes Azerbaijan. The country’s quota for May was set at 603,000 bpd. Output figures are due to be released this week.

Measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic and economic disruptions related to the pandemic have hurt production and mobility worldwide, leading to a significant drop in global demand for oil. To compensate for this, OPEC+ has cut output by about 7 million bpd to support prices and reduce oversupply.

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.

Azerbaijan produced 594,100 bpd of oil in April, up from 592,100 bpd in March, in line with the country’s obligations under the OPEC+ deal.

At a recent meeting, the cartel members decided to maintain the decline in oil production in July at 5.76 million bpd to maintain stability in the global hydrocarbon market.

Most of Azerbaijan’s oil production comes from the giant off-shore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oilfields, which are developed by a BP-led consortium. BP said in April that oil output at its projects in Azerbaijan declined to 484,000 bpd in the first quarter of 2021 from 524,000 bpd a year earlier.

BP said that in the first quarter, ACG completed three oil producer and two injector wells.

The consortium spent more than $142 million in operating expenditure and more than $463 million in capital expenditure on ACG activities in the first three months of 2021.

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