The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and BP, the operator acting on behalf of the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) have signed a letter of intent (LoI) for the future development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. Under the agreement, AIOC (BP, Chevron, INPEX, Statoil, ExxonMobil, TPAO, ITOCHU and ONGC Videsh) will continue to develop the field until 2050, to add significant resource development potential.
ACG is a super-giant field, the biggest producing oil field in the Caspian Sea, covering an area of more than 432 km². The existing ACG Production Sharing Agreement was signed in September 1994 for 30 years (expiring in 2024). Oil production from the field began in November 1997. To date the field has produced more than 3 Gbl of oil with an average production of 620,000 bbl/d. It required around US$33bn of investment.