BP will cut its oil production in Azerbaijan by 76,000 barrels per day (bpd) in May and June as part of the ex-Soviet country's efforts to curb supply, state energy firm SOCAR said on Thursday.
SOCAR plans to cut production by 17,000 bpd over the same period, while companies that produce onshore oil will cut by 3,000 bpd.
Azerbaijan, the third-largest oil producer among ex-Soviet countries after Russia and Kazakhstan, is a member of the OPEC+ group of countries which have agreed to cut supply.
For its part, Azerbaijan should cut output in May-June by 96,000 barrels per day (bpd), in July-December by 63,000 bpd, and by 30,000 bpd between January and April 2022, SOCAR said in a statement.
SOCAR's portion works out to cutting 17,000 bpd to reduce output to 100,000 barrels in May-June, by 12,000 bpd to 105,000 barrels in July-December and by 6,000 bpd to 111,000 barrels between January 2021 and April 2022, a source from oil industry told Reuters.
SOCAR and foreign companies operating in Azerbaijan agreed to divide production cuts between each other proportionally as per a recommendation by the energy ministry, the source said.
BP leads an international consortium operating the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oilfields.
Its portion of the planned cuts works out to reducing production by 76,000 bpd to 434,000 bpd in May-June, by 49,000 bpd to 461,000 barrels in July-December and by 23,000 bpd to 487,000 barrels between January 2021 and April 2022.
Azerbaijan expects to produce 30.7 million tonnes of oil or 226.3 million barrels in 2021, SOCAR said.
It had forecast 36.5 million tonnes of oil this year, but its revised outlook in view of the planned cuts is not known yet.
(Writing by Alexander Marrow and Margarita Antidze; editing by Mark Potter and Jason Neely)
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