BP starts oil production at new offshore platform in Azerbaijan

BAKU (Reuters) - BP has started oil production at a new Azeri Central East (ACE) offshore platform in the Caspian Sea, the company said on Tuesday, bolstering declining oil output in the ex-Soviet country.

The ACE platform is the seventh oil platform installed in the giant Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field in the Caspian Sea. ACG first began production in 1997 and has since produced more than 4.3 billion barrels of oil.

Azerbaijan oil production has been in decline since passing peak output of about 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2011-2012 and has been producing below its quota under the OPEC+ agreement among leading oil producers.

BP said the ACE platform and related facilities are designed to process up to 100,000 bpd and the project is expected to produce up to 300 million barrels over its lifetime.

ACE production is expected to increase through 2024 to about 24,000 bpd as two more wells are drilled, completed and brought online, the company said.

(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by David Goodman)