SOCAR, BP see ACG’s ultimate oil recovery factor above 40%

SOCAR and BP have agreed that the ultimate oil recovery factor at Azerbaijan’s Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) field complex could exceed 40%, SOCAR First Vice President Babek Huseynov said.

The figure represents the proportion of oil originally in place that can be recovered over the fields’ productive life. Huseynov did not specify the previous estimate or how many additional barrels the assessment could translate into.

He said the companies reached their conclusion after jointly assessing the fields’ characteristics, oil quality and existing infrastructure. ACG has passed peak production and is undergoing natural decline, but billions of barrels remain to be recovered, he said.

Huseynov said SOCAR had asked BP, the project’s operator, to identify what was technically possible before screening out potential projects on economic grounds.

That approach had generated a range of technical proposals. He did not give specific investment amounts or implementation schedules in these remarks.

BP has clarified that ACG’s annual oil production decline had slowed to around 3% by November 2026, from about 12% in 2023. The company attributes the improvement to joint efforts with SOCAR to support production and increase oil recovery.

BP completed 17 wells at ACG in January–September 2026, up from 11 a year earlier. Measures to support output also include water and gas injection to maintain reservoir pressure and new drilling technologies to improve access to remaining reserves.