Baku: BP and its co-venturers reported a substantial financial commitment to the Shah Deniz project in 2025, with an investment of approximately $2,315 million in operating expenditure and $1,087 million in capital expenditure.
According to Azerbaijan State News Agency, the Shah Deniz field maintained its role as a crucial gas supplier to several markets, including Azerbaijan through SOCAR, Georgia via GOGC, Turkey through BOTAS, BTC across multiple locations, and various buyers in Europe. In 2025, the field produced around 27 billion standard cubic meters of gas and approximately 4 million tonnes of condensate, which equates to about 32 million barrels from the Shah Deniz Alpha and Bravo platforms.
The production capacity of existing Shah Deniz facilities currently stands at about 77 million standard cubic meters of gas per day, or roughly 28 billion standard cubic meters annually. Significant progress was made in the fourth quarter of 2025 on Shah Deniz 2, particularly in the subsea execution scope of remaining wells on the East North flank.
The subsea construction vessel Khankendi played a pivotal role in providing life-of-field support throughout 2025, carrying out services, surveys, and interventions across all Shah Deniz 2 and ACG subsea producing assets. It successfully completed its class survey and general maintenance during the fourth quarter, including thruster repairs. During this period, the diving support vessel Tofig Ismayilov assumed the first responder role to maintain operational continuity.
Khankendi's primary mission remains focused on Shah Deniz 2 activities, which include delivering the remaining wells within the project. The vessel is also engaged in a multi-well subsea intervention campaign in the ACG Deepwater Gunashli area, aimed at early identification of opportunities for pressure management and enhancement of production rates. This campaign utilizes a vessel-based riserless light well intervention system integrated onto the Khankendi to conduct interventions.
Following the final investment decision in June 2025, the SDC project moved forward with several major contract awards, covering engineering and procurement support services, topsides construction, jacket fabrication, and the transportation and installation of the entire SDC platform. Additionally, it involves the engineering, procurement, construction, and installation of subsea structures. Construction activities under these contracts have already commenced and are proceeding on schedule.
A significant milestone was achieved in September 2025 with the First Steel Cut for the SDC platform topsides facilities, following comprehensive quality and safety reviews, marking a crucial step in the $2.9 billion SDC project. This project aims to access and produce low-pressure gas reserves in the field and maximize resource recovery, potentially enabling around 50 billion cubic meters of additional gas and 25 million barrels of additional condensate production and export.
The project includes installing a new compression facility-an electrically-powered unmanned compression platform, or Normally Unattended Installation (eNUI)-and several associated offshore facilities in the Shah Deniz contract area. It also involves brownfield works at Shah Deniz Alpha and Bravo platforms, as well as the Sangachal terminal. The construction of the SDC platform is expected to conclude in 2029, with the facility ready to receive first gas for compression from the SDA platform in 2029 and from the SDB platform in 2030.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, the Shah Deniz Alpha platform completed the rig restart and commenced additional perforation activities on SDA wells. Shah Deniz 2 continued to progress with wells program activities using the Istiglal and Heydar Aliyev rigs. The Istiglal rig performed additional perforation work on the SDG03 well and began log and tieback run activities on the SDD05 well on the West flank. Meanwhile, the Heydar Aliyev rig continued drilling the SDH05 well on the East North flank.
To date, 23 wells have been drilled for Shah Deniz 2, comprising five wells on the North flank, five on the West flank, four on the East South flank, five on the West South flank, and four on the East North flank.