Gas, produced as part of the first stage of development of the offshore Apsheron field in Caspian, will be sold on Azerbaijan's domestic market, the press service of France's Total, the project operator, said.


On Monday, State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) and Total signed an agreement on determining the main agreements and commercial conditions for the first stage of the Apsheron gas condensate field's development.


Total said that the first stage of the field's development includes drilling one well in water with a depth of 450 meters. The expected daily flow is about 35,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.


"The produced gas will be supplied to the Azerbaijani domestic market," the press release said.


Total head Patrick Pouyanne was cited as saying in the press release that cooperation between Total and SOCAR has permitted the companies to develop an economically competitive scheme of developing the project, which envisages hooking the field up to existing infrastructure in order to supply gas at a competitive price.


Earlier the head of SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, said that the drilling of the first production well at the Apsheron field will begin in the middle of 2017. Production of first gas at the field is planned to begin in Q3-Q4 2019.



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