The East Azeri platform deck on the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea was lowered into position on 28 July. Statoil has an 8.56% interest in the ACG field, operated by BP.
The platform deck en route to its steel base at East Azeri in the Caspian Sea.
Transporting the near 16,000 tonne topside from the construction site near the capital Baku to the field took two days. The platform's jacket was safely positioned in 150 metres of water during March.
"Project execution has progressed well," says Andrew Sanderson, Statoil's ACG project manager. "Following the successful positioning of the deck, all that remains is offshore hook-ups and commissioning of facilities prior to first oil."
First oil production from East Azeri is expected towards the end of 2006, several months earlier than originally planned. At its peak East Azeri will produce 260,000 barrels of oil per day, building on earlier successes of the phased full-field development.
ACG will produce more than one million barrels of oil per day on reaching peak production in 2009. The oil will be sent to the Sangachal terminal in Azerbaijan for processing and export primarily through the recently completed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline to the Mediterranean.