SEATTLE (Oil Monster): Turkey has agreed a long-term deal to import pipeline gas from Azerbaijan in a move that could help support a final investment decision by TotalEnergies and partners for the development of a second phase at a Caspian Sea project.
Speaking on Sunday in a televised interview with Turkish broadcaster Kanal 7, Turkey’s Energy & Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said that the country has signed a contract to import 33 billion cubic metres of natural gas from the Absheron field for a period of 15 years.
Bayraktar said that deliveries under the new contract will start in 2029. He did not name the Turkish company that will import the gas, although the country’s state run gas importer and distributor Botas is usually a signatory in similar gas import deals.
“We have once again secured competitively priced gas and are beginning to bring it into our country on a long-term basis,” Bayraktar said.
Turkey recently extended a gas supply deal with Russia's Gazprom and has previously announced it intends to buy more liquefied natural gas from the US.
Absheron is operated by TotalEnergies. Azerbaijani state oil and gas player Socar and United Arab Emirates’ Adnoc are partners in the project.
The first phase of this offshore field has been producing at a rate of about 1.5 Bcm of gas per year, however all of that gas is being shipped to domestic customers in Azerbaijan.
TotalEnergies and partners have been working on the second phase of the development, aiming to produce an additional 1.5 Bcm per annum. That could eventually rise to between 4 Bcm and 4.5 Bcm per annum, taking the total field's gas output to 6 Bcm per annum, Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said in a post on social network X in July 2024.
In November last year, Socar vice president Babak Huseynov told the SPE Annual Caspian Technical Conference in Baku that partners are hoping to pass the FID for the second phase of Absheron in 2026, according to Baku-based news agency Report.
TotalEnergies managing director and country chair in Azerbaijan Emmanuel de Guillebon said last year at another industry forum in Baku that the Absheron second phase may initially entail the installation of subsea production templates to collect the stream of hydrocarbons from three or four new development wells.
The stream will be then transported for processing onshore to split it into natural gas and condensate via a 140-kilometre pipeline to the shore, Moscow-based news agency Interfax quoted him as saying.
Absheron, where first gas was produced in 2023, is estimated to contain about 350 Bcm of recoverable gas reserves.
Azerbaijan is already a major supplier of gas to Turkey, rivalling Russian pipeline gas and US LNG imports. The country exported about 11.5 Bcm of gas to Turkey in 2024, up 12% compared to 2023, according to a monthly report from Turkey's energy market regulatory authority EMRA.
Azerbaijan operates a set of gas pipelines, known as the Southern Gas Corridor, that carry gas from its Caspian offshore developments to Turkey and onwards to Europe via Greece.
Courtesy: www.upstreamonline.com
