bp-led Shah Deniz consortium lets $700 million in compression project contracts

The bp plc-led Shah Deniz consortium has awarded three offshore contracts to advance the Shah Deniz compression (SDC) project in Azerbaijan.

The $2.9-billion SDC project was sanctioned earlier this year. The aim is to access and produce low pressure gas reserves in Shah Deniz gas field and maximize resource recovery.

In first-half 2025, the field produced around 14 billion cu m of gas and about 16 million bbl of condensate in total from the Shah Deniz Alpha and Shah Deniz Bravo platforms. Production capacty of existing Shah Deniz infrastructure is about 77.2 million cu m/day of gas.

The contracts, with a combined value of about $700 million, have been awarded to the Saipem-BOS Shelf joint venture.

The scope of work under the contracts includes:

• Transportation and installation of the entire SDC platform – a new 19,000-tonne platform to be installed in the Caspian Sea.
• Engineering, procurement, construction, and installation of subsea structures, including about 26 km of new offshore pipelines, to connect the SDC platform with existing Shah Deniz infrastructure.

All onshore construction activities will be carried out at Baku Deep Water Jacket Factory, operated by BOS Shelf.

Offshore construction and installation will be executed using the Khankendi subsea construction vessel owned by the Shah Deniz consortium, and the Israfil Huseynov pipelay barge owned by the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Co. (ASCO). Both vessels will be operated by Saipem.

Offshore activities are expected to begin with pin pile installation in third-quarter 2026, with completion targeted for 2029.

Shah Deniz compression project

The SDC project is expected to enable around 50 billion cu m of additional gas and about 25 million bbl of additional condensate production and export from Shah Deniz field, bp said in a project overview on its website.

The project involves installation of an electrically-powered unmanned compression platform in 85 m water depth, about 3 km from the existing Shah Deniz Bravo (SDB) platform.

With four 11-MW compressors onboard, the SDC platform is designed to serve as a host facility for gas compression from both the Shah Deniz Alpha (SDA) and SDB platforms, meaning that before flowing to the Sangachal terminal onshore, export gas from the platforms will be compressed at SDC, according to bp.

Construction activities are expected to be completed in 2029 to be ready to receive first gas for compression from the SDA platform in 2029 and from the SDB platform in 2030.