BP hands out seven-year deal for its oil & gas assets in Azerbaijan

Oil and gas major BP has awarded a long-term business services contract, covering its assets in the Caspian Sea and onshore Azerbaijan, to Glensol (Global Energy Solutions LLC).

BP revealed last Friday that it had awarded a seven-year contract for the provision of operating and maintenance services on gas turbine packages to Glensol. The oil major explains that this “marks the localisation of yet another critical area of business services” in its operations in this region as this is “the first experience in BP’s global upstream supply chain” where a local service provider was awarded a contract with a scope that is “as a rule managed by the original equipment manufacturer.”

Ilgar Gasanov, BP maintenance and reliability discipline manager, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye region, remarked: “Gas turbine maintenance is one of the critical areas of our activities which is necessary to ensure the long-term reliability, integrity and production performance of our assets. Localization of such important scope is a huge achievement, and we hope we will continue to receive high-quality service for this critical area of our operations.”

Furthermore, BP highlights that this “large value contract award” follows “a competitive, very extensive and complex” tendering activity. The scope of work for this contract encompasses technical support, fleet management, power turbine, engine and alternator overhauls, spares management and other related services.

Moreover, the services, which will be provided under this contract, entail all BP-operated offshore installations in the Caspian and onshore facilities in Azerbaijan, including the Sangachal terminal. In addition, the contract scope includes services for the future Azeri Central East (ACE) platform. 

Hikmet Gayibov, BP’s procurement senior manager for the Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye region, commented: “We are pleased to award Glensol this critical business services contract which historically has always been managed by international service providers. This contract award once again highlights our commitment to developing Azerbaijan’s local resources and increasing their role across BP-operated projects in the region. As we celebrate our 30th anniversary in this country, we are proud of our local content achievements.

“During the first three quarters of this year, 60 per cent of our total third-party expenditure was spent in the country. We also continue to invest in local enterprise development through our major social programme which has enabled hundreds of local companies to enhance their capability and become suppliers for the oil and gas industry projects.”     

BP operates the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG), Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Shah Deniz projects in Azerbaijan and together with its co-venturers, the oil major has invested around $84 billion into these projects. The company directly employs around 2,296 Azerbaijani citizens who make up over 90 per cent of its professional staff in this country.

When it comes to BP’s other recent activities in Azerbaijan, it is worth noting that the oil major awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED), turnaround engineering, and procurement support services contract in June 2022 for the Shah Deniz Alpha (SDA) platform to a joint venture between Houston-based KBR and Azerbaijan’s SOCAR.

This project is expected to significantly reduce the platform’s overall carbon footprint and increase operational efficiency, providing a robust, long-term, high-availability power supply.