Major contracts rolled out for offshore Azerbaijan

March 12 (UPI) -- A subsidiary of British energy company BP awarded field services company Subsea 7 with a substantial contract for work off the coast of Azerbaijan, it said.

Subsea 7 said Monday it secured a contract from BP for the provision of inspection, repair and maintenance serves at the Azer-Chirag-Gunashli oil field and the Shah Deniz natural gas field in the Azeri waters of the Caspian Sea.

Services under the terms of the five-year agreement begin this month with a project team supported by i-Tech Services, a division of Subsea 7, in Azerbaijan.

"This contract represents a significant milestone for i-Tech Services, with our entry into Azerbaijan," Steve Wisely, i-Tech Services senior vice president, said in a statement.

BP had no statement on the contracts for offshore Azerbaijan. The company last year led a consortium of international partners in extending a contract with the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic for the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field in the Azeri waters of the Caspian Sea.

Since the initial production sharing contract was signed in 1994, the oil field has produced more than 3 billion barrels of oil and delivered more than $125 billion in net profits to Azerbaijan.

More than 500 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year is slated for exports from Shah Deniz to the European market through the broader network of 2,100 miles of pipelines in the Southern Corridor within the next few years.

Azerbaijan became a net gas exporter in 2007. The country is party to the effort led by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to balance an oversupplied market with coordinated production cuts.

For offshore Azerbaijan, Subsea 7 put the value of a "substantial" contract at between $150 million and $300 million.