TotalEnergies and its joint venture partner SOCAR began natural gas production from the Absheron gas and condensate field in the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan, the French supermajor said on Monday.
The first phase of the development of the Absheron field has a production capacity of 4 million cubic meters of gas per day and 12,000 barrels a day of condensate.
The gas will be sold on the domestic market in Azerbaijan, which could free more gas from other Azerbaijani fields for exports, analysts say.
TotalEnergies and the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) hold a 50% interest each in the Absheron project, which is operated by the joint company Joint Operating Company of Absheron Petroleum (JOCAP).
"The development of the Absheron field provides an additional gas supply to meet growing demand, at a competitive technical cost and low greenhouse gas emissions intensity, in line with TotalEnergies' strategy," the French company, which is also a major LNG trader, said in a statement.
Analysts and Europe will be looking very closely at the next development phases of Azerbaijan's gas fields as Europe seeks to import more gas from suppliers other than Russia.
The EU has diversified its gas imports in the past year as it aims to ditch Russian gas by 2027. Europe's LNG imports have soared, pipeline imports from Norway have also increased to the point of making Norway the EU's single largest supplier of natural gas.
Europe is also looking at African gas supply, as well as gas from Azerbaijan, to meet its demand without Russian gas.
Last summer, the EU and Azerbaijan signed a strategic partnership agreement with which they committed to double the capacity of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor to deliver at least 20 billion cubic meters of Azeri gas to the EU per year by 2027.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More