‘First massive piece’ of BP’s Azeri project puzzle done, as jacket gets ready for sailaway – gallery

Oil major BP has tucked another achievement under its belt for the Azeri Central East (ACE) project in Azerbaijan by completing the jacket for the ACE platform, which is now ready for load-out to sail away to its final destination in the Caspian Sea.

The BP-operated $6 billion ACE project is the next phase of the Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) field in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan. This project was sanctioned in April 2019 and construction started that same year with expectations to achieve the first production in 2023. The company outlines that 80 per cent of the work scope is already completed with outstanding safety achievements of over 20 million hours worked injury free.

As the jacket of the Azeri Central East platform – built at the Heydar Aliyev Baku Deepwater Jackets Factory (BDJF) – is ready for load-out to sail away to its permanent location in the ACG contract area in the Caspian Sea, BP explained on Tuesday that Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, visited the BDJF yard for an official ceremony to launch the jacket, scheduled to sail away for offshore installation in the first quarter of 2023.

The oil major highlights that the construction of the jacket was completed safely and on schedule, thus, it will be loaded out onto the transportation barge STB-1 at the quayside of BDJF in preparation for sailaway. The ACE platform jacket was fully constructed in Azerbaijan, using local construction infrastructure and facilities. While over 2,000 people, including sub-contractors and specialist vendors, were involved in the construction works, BP underscored that the majority of the workforce were Azerbaijani citizens.

Gary Jones, BP’s regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye, said: “The ACE project represents the start of the ACG’s renewed contract in action. We are very pleased to have completed the first massive piece of the project – the ACE platform jacket, safely and on schedule. This is a significant step towards the first ACE oil achievement.

“We will now focus on the other parts of the project – topside facilities, subsea construction and offshore installation as we move towards completion of the entire project next year. This will allow us to start drilling the first well for commencement of ACE production.”

The ACE platform jacket, which weighs 16,000 tonnes and stands 153 metres high, contains three production risers – one water injection, one oil export and one gas export- and will be installed in a water depth of 137 metres.

The ACE project is centred on a new 48-slot production, drilling and quarters platform located mid-way between the existing Central Azeri and East Azeri platforms in a water depth of approximately 140 metres. This project entails new infield pipelines to transfer oil and gas from the ACE platform to the existing ACG Phase 2 oil and gas export pipelines for transportation to the onshore Sangachal terminal. 

Additionally, the project will include a water injection pipeline between the East Azeri and ACE platforms to supply injection water from the Central Azeri compression and water injection platform to the ACE facilities. 

BP underlins that the ACE platform and facilities are designed to process up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day while the project is expected to produce up to 300 million barrels over its lifetime.

Regarding BP’s recent activities, the oil major has been working on growing its renewables portfolio to support the energy transition while continuing to develop hydrocarbon projects that help strengthen energy security.

The oil major recently reported that it was “hard at work getting projects ready to deliver the energy the world needs.” This ranges from “heavy lifting in Azerbaijan to innovative feats of engineering in Africa.” 

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