BP Exploration (Caspian Sea) Limited is the operator on behalf of the Contractor Parties to the ACG Production Sharing Agreement.
In 2025, bp and its co-venturers spent about $564 million in operating expenditure and about $1,288 million in capital expenditure on ACG activities.
During the year, the 4D high-definition ocean bottom node seismic programme on ACG successfully completed processing of the data acquired in 2024 and concluded data acquisition for the second year of the programme.
In addition, ACG has launched a multi-well subsea intervention campaign in the Deepwater Gunashli (DWG) area. For the first time in bp’s Caspian operations, the campaign is deploying riserless light well intervention (RLWI) technology – a subsea mechanical wireline intervention system known as the Blue Ocean Riserless Intervention System (BORIS), provided by Oceaneering International. This innovative approach will enable efficient surveillance and early identification of opportunities for pressure management and production rate enhancement, unlocking further potential in the field. To reduce reliance on semisubmersible drilling rigs and enable earlier subsea interventions, the campaign utilizes a vessel-based intervention method – another first for the Caspian. The RLWI system has been integrated onto the Khankendi subsea construction vessel, from which all interventions are being conducted.
Offshore operations as part of the campaign are expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
Production
During the year, ACG continued to safely and reliably deliver stable production. Total ACG production for the full year was on average about 330,000 barrels per day (b/d) (about 120 million barrels or 16 million tonnes in total) from the Chirag (21,000 b/d), Central Azeri (90,000 b/d), West Azeri (76,000 b/d), East Azeri (43,000 b/d), Deepwater Gunashli (51,000 b/d), West Chirag (24,000 b/d) and ACE (25,000 b/d) platforms.
In 2025, ACG marked two major production milestones. On 18 February, the Central Azeri platform celebrated the 20th anniversary of first oil production. The platform remains the leading ACG production facility having produced a total of 1.2 billion barrels (157 million tonnes) of oil to date. Later in the year, on 30 December, the West Azeri platform also marked 20 years since first oil, with total cumulative production exceeding 1 billion barrels (142 million tonnes).
At the end of 2025, 147 oil wells were producing, while 49 were used for water and 10 for gas injection.
Drilling and completion
In 2025, ACG drilled and completed 10 oil producer, five water injector, one gas injector and one cuttings re-injector wells.
Associated gas
During the year, ACG delivered an average of around 8 million cubic metres per day of ACG associated gas to the state of Azerbaijan (2.9 billion cubic metres in total), primarily at the Sangachal terminal but also to SOCAR’s Oil Rocks facility. The remainder of the associated gas produced was re-injected for reservoir pressure maintenance.
Non-associated gas (NAG)
Following the signing of the ACG NAG Addendum in 2024, an initial production well was planned and safely drilled from ACG’s existing West Chirag platform. The well also represents a significant appraisal milestone, as the data obtained will help build future plans for ACG’s NAG development.
In 2025, the well was successfully delivered, providing access to two priority NAG deep reservoirs - the shallower NKP and the deeper PK reservoirs - both located beneath the currently producing oil reservoirs.
The well confirmed the presence of gas resources in the NKP reservoir, which is the main target reservoir for first NAG production, starting second half this year.
Additionally, the well encountered high pressure gas in the PK reservoir. There are also plans to produce from this reservoir in the first half of 2026, however, production from PK will be short-term and undertaken solely for testing purposes, before we move to the NKP reservoir.
In 2025, oil and gas from ACG and Shah Deniz continued to flow via subsea pipelines to the Sangachal terminal.
The daily capacity of the terminal’s processing systems is currently 1.2 million barrels of crude oil and condensate, and about 81 million standard cubic metres of Shah Deniz gas, while overall processing and export capacity for gas, including ACG associated gas is around 100 million standard cubic metres per day.
During the year, the Sangachal terminal exported around 209 million barrels of oil and condensate, which was sent mainly through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
Gas is exported via the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP), including the SCP expansion system and via Azerbaijan’s pipelines connecting the terminal’s gas processing facilities with Azerigas’s national grid system.
On average, around 74.4 million standard cubic metres (about 2,628 million standard cubic feet) of Shah Deniz gas was sent from the terminal daily during the year of 2025.
Sangachal terminal electrification (STEL) project
On 2 June 2025, the investors in the Sangachal terminal sanctioned the Sangachal terminal electrification (STEL) project. The $230 million project will enable the terminal to connect with Azerbaijan’s national grid operated by AzerEnerji, via new facilities to be built both within and outside the terminal, including a new 220/110 kV electricity substation.
The STEL project is closely linked to the Shafag project, a 240MW AC solar plant being built in Jabrayil, via a new commercial structure called ‘virtual power transfer arrangement’. Based on this arrangement, the Shafag plant would produce power and deliver it to AzerEnerji in the Jabrayil district, while AzerEnerji would deliver an equivalent quantity of electricity to the Sangachal terminal near Baku. Together, the Shafag and STEL projects are expected to support the reduction of operational emissions by around 50% over the future life of the Sangachal terminal, based on the current outlook and plans.
The terminal currently uses seven gas turbines to generate the power it needs. Following the electrification, the turbines will be removed in phases, freeing up the fuel gas for export.
In 2025, the STEL project awarded three main contracts and made steady progress across all contract work scopes - including engineering, procurement, fabrication, and construction - with site activities currently advancing safely and on schedule.
Construction activities are expected to be completed in two stages – Stage 1 in mid-2027, and Stage 2 by the end of 2028.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, construction activities for the Shafag project progressed on schedule at the site in the Jabrayil district.
Following the final investment decision in June 2025, the project awarded two main contracts: one for engineering, procurement and construction services, as well as operation and maintenance for the first two years of the plant’s operations, and the other for module supply. Under these contracts, site mobilization was successfully completed in 2025, and construction is now actively underway. In parallel, module supply activities commenced, with the first shipment of panels successfully delivered to the site in August 2025.
Construction activities for the Shafag project are expected to continue through mid-2027, with a strong focus on utilizing local resources. At peak, the project is expected to create up to 400 jobs.
In 2025, BTC Co. spent around $131 million in operating expenditure and $98 million in capital expenditure.
Since the 1,768 km BTC pipeline became operational in June 2006 till the end of 2025, it carried a total of around 4.7 billion barrels (about 619 million tonnes) of crude oil loaded on 6,145 tankers and sent to world markets.
In 2025, about 207 million barrels (27 million tonnes) of BTC-exported crude oil was lifted at Ceyhan and loaded on 283 tankers.
The BTC pipeline currently carries mainly ACG crude oil and Shah Deniz condensate from Azerbaijan. In addition, other volumes of Caspian regional crude oil and condensate (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, other SOCAR volumes produced in Azerbaijan) continue to be transported via BTC.
In 2025, bp and its co-venturers spent around $2,315 million in operating expenditure and around $1,087 million in capital expenditure on Shah Deniz activities, the majority of which was associated with the Shah Deniz 2 project.
Production
During the year, the Shah Deniz field continued to provide gas to markets in Azerbaijan (to SOCAR), Georgia (to GOGC), Türkiye (to BOTAS), BTC in multiple locations and to buyers in Europe.
In 2025, the field produced around 27 billion standard cubic metres of gas and about 4 million tonnes (around 32 million barrels) of condensate in total from the Shah Deniz Alpha and Shah Deniz Bravo platforms.
The existing Shah Deniz facilities’ production capacity is currently about 77 million standard cubic metres of gas per day or approximately 28 billion standard cubic metres per year.
The Shah Deniz 2 project
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Shah Deniz 2 progressed with the subsea execution scope of the remaining wells on the East North flank.
In 2025, the subsea construction vessel Khankendi continued to provide life-of-field support, covering services, surveys, and interventions across all of the Shah Deniz 2 and ACG subsea producing assets. In the fourth quarter, the vessel successfully completed its class survey and general maintenance, which included thruster repairs. During the Khankendi dry dock period, the diving support vessel Tofig Ismayilov took on the first responder role to ensure continuity of operations.
While the Shah Deniz 2 activities, including the delivery of the remaining wells within the project, remain the primary mission for the Khankendi, the vessel is currently involved in a multi-well subsea intervention campaign in the ACG Deepwater Gunashli area supporting early identification of opportunities for pressure management and production rate enhancement of ACG. The campaign uses vessel-based riserless light well intervention system which has been integrated onto the Khankendi to conduct all interventions.
This is part of the integrated schedule ensuring the efficient utilization of the vessel and drilling rigs, in order to optimize activities and accelerate well start-up dates.
Shah Deniz Compression (SDC) project
Following the final investment decision in June 2025, the SDC project progressed with the award of several major contracts, including agreements for engineering and procurement support services; topsides construction; jacket fabrication; transportation and installation of the entire SDC platform, as well as the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of subsea structures.
Under these contracts, construction activities have already commenced and are progressing on schedule.
In September, the project marked a key milestone with the First Steel Cut for the SDC platform topsides facilities, following the successful completion of comprehensive quality and safety reviews.
The $2.9 billion SDC project is designed to help access and produce low pressure gas reserves in the field and maximize resources recovery. It is expected to enable around 50 billion cubic metres of additional gas and approximately 25 million barrels of additional condensate production and export from the field.
The project involves installation of a new compression facility – an electrically-powered unmanned compression platform, or Normally Unattended Installation (eNUI), and several associated facilities offshore in the Shah Deniz contract area. Additionally, it encompasses brownfield works to be undertaken at the Shah Deniz Alpha (SDA) and Bravo (SDB) platforms, as well as at the Sangachal terminal.
It is expected that the construction of the SDC platform will be completed in 2029 for the facility to be ready to receive first gas for compression from the SDA platform in 2029 and from the SDB platform in 2030.
Drilling
During the fourth quarter of 2025, the Shah Deniz Alpha platform completed the rig restart and commenced a series of additional perforation activities on SDA wells.
The Shah Deniz 2 project progressed with the wells programme activities using the Istiglal and Heydar Aliyev rigs. During the quarter, the Istiglal rig carried out additional perforation work on the SDG03 well and started log and tieback run activities on the SDD05 well on the West flank. The Heydar Aliyev rig continued drilling the SDH05 well on the East North flank.
In total, 23 wells have been drilled for Shah Deniz 2 to date. These include five wells on the North flank, five wells on the West flank, four wells on the East South flank, five wells on the West South flank and four wells on the East North flank.
In 2025, the SCPC spent around $71 million in operating expenditure and $38 million in capital expenditure in total.
The SCP has been operational since late 2006, transporting Shah Deniz gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye. The expanded section of the pipeline commenced commercial deliveries to Türkiye in June 2018 and to Europe in December 2020.
During the year, the daily average export throughput of the SCP was 63.7 million cubic metres of gas per day.
Further evaluation of the Shafag-Asiman block is required to help identify the most suitable option to advance the project. To this end, additional evaluation activities will be undertaken, including drilling a well into the Lower Surakhany reservoir. To enable these activities, the exploration period under the Shafag-Asiman Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) was extended in June 2025, with bp continuing as operator during this period. Currently, work is underway to plan for future activities.
The participating interests in Shafag-Asiman are as follows: bp (operator – 35%), SOCAR (35%), and TPAO (30%, joined the PSA in June 2025).
In June 2025, bp joined the existing risk service agreement (RSA) for the development of the Karabagh field and the PSA on the exploration of the Ashrafi-Dan Ulduzu-Aypara (ADUA) area located in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. bp acquired 35% participating interest from SOCAR in each agreement becoming the operator in each of the RSA and PSA. The agreements provide new opportunities for cooperation with SOCAR to identify the most efficient ways of oil and gas development that make best use of the existing infrastructure in the Caspian.
On the Karabagh field, as a first step a seismic survey programme involving Ocean Bottom Node (OBN) seismic survey is being conducted to enhance the reservoir understanding, support well planning, and optimize field development strategies. This survey commenced in December and is expected to continue for up to 3.5 months. In addition, a High-Resolution (HR) / Ultra-High Resolution (UHR) seismic survey will be conducted to assist with the identification of geological hazards that could affect well integrity, and subsurface hazards that could impact safe installation of a platform and other infrastructure. The HR/UHR survey is planned for March–April 2026 and will last up to 45 days.
The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) document for the Karabagh seismic survey programme was disclosed for public consultations in October, and the final document was approved by the government in December.
On the ADUA block, as a first step it is planned to conduct a seismic survey programme between February and April 2026 in water depths ranging from 20 to 40 metres. The programme, which includes a 2D HR seismic survey, is planned to be short in duration, lasting up to 20 days, will cover a small area located in the north-western part of the ADUA block. The primary objective of the seismic survey is to acquire detailed subsurface data to a depth of approximately 1,500 metres to support the planning of future exploration wells. The survey will help identify shallow geological hazards, including faults, shallow gas accumulations, and other subsurface features that could pose risks to drilling operations and well integrity.
In December 2025, the draft EIA document for the ADUA seismic survey programme was disclosed for public consultations and submitted to the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan for review.
At the end of 2025, the number of bp’s Azerbaijani national employees was 2,344 including fixed-term employees.
Since mid-2018, 90% of bp Azerbaijan’s professional staff has been nationals. Non-professional staff of bp in Azerbaijan is 100% nationalized.
bp will continue its efforts to optimize its learning and development programmes and will actively participate in public and private sector initiatives contributing to the development of the local talent market.
The success of projects in the Caspian region depends, in part, on the operators’ ability to create tangible benefits from these projects for the people of the region. To achieve this, bp and its co-venturers continue to implement major social investment projects, which include educational programmes, building skills and capabilities in local communities, improving access to social infrastructure in communities, supporting local enterprises through provision of access to finance and training, support for cultural legacy and sport, as well as technical assistance to public institutions.
In 2025, bp and its co-venturers in the bp-operated joint ventures spent about $2.4 million on social investment projects in Azerbaijan. During the year, this included 25 educational projects, one capacity-building and enterprise development programme and one environmental initiative.
In addition, in 2025, bp alone spent about $1.8 million on various social and sponsorship projects in Azerbaijan.
These included 24 educational initiatives, two capacity-building and enterprise development programmes, two projects promoting the country’s cultural heritage and sport, five environmental initiatives, as well as 14 conferences and workshops on various themes – in total 47 projects.
For more information about bp and its co-venturers’ social investment projects please visit the bp Azerbaijan website at www.bp.com/azerbaijan.
Tamam Bayatly at bp’s press office in Baku.
Telephone: (+994 12) 525 58 95