Exxon, Chevon To Exit Azerbaijan -- Focus On The Permian -- December 6, 2018

Wow, talk about a blind spot. It appears I never posted many stories about Azerbaijan. I was very aware of it, but apparently not interested enough in posting many stories nor even linking it among all the oil plays I've listed at the sidebar at the right.

At one time -- I suppose when President Obama was telling us we could not drill our way to lower gasoline prices -- Azerbaijan was really, really important. In fact, at one time, US oil companies signed what is known as the "contract of the century" when it partnered with the former Soviet republic. From oilprice.

It appears that US oil companies are now planning "to exit" Azerbaijan and focus on the Permian. The article says the companies will focus on "US shale," but that has become a/an euphemism for "the Permian."

The Bakken and the Eagle Ford have pretty much reached steady state / the manufacturing phase. But the Permian is yet to take off.

From the linked article:

Since the oil industry started to recover from the 2014 price crash, U.S. supermajors ExxonMobil and Chevron have been re-aligning their global operations with their longer-term priorities, betting more on the shale patch at home and on several strategic projects worldwide.

The companies are now looking to exit Azerbaijan, including the country’s biggest oil field and some pipeline infrastructure. This would mark the withdrawal of U.S. companies from the Azeri oil industry a full 25 years after western majors, including five U.S. firms, signed what is known as “the Contract of the Century” in the former Soviet republic.

As part of a re-prioritization of its global operations, ExxonMobil is looking to sell its minority stake in the giant Azeri oil field Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) in the Caspian Sea, hoping to obtain as much as US$2 billion for its interest, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing banking and industry sources.

Chevron, for its part, is reviewing its global asset portfolio and has “decided to initiate the process of marketing, with a view to a potential sale, of our Chevron affiliate interests in the Azeri Chirag and Deep Water Gunashli (ACG) project and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline."

Those other foreign projects alluded to in the article?

In recent years, Exxon has shifted its global focus to offshore exploration in Guyana, where it has found major reserves of oil—including a tenth find announced earlier this week—with plans to start producing from the Liza Phase 1 development of up to 120,000 barrels oil per day by early 2020.

The Liza Complex now best compares to Brazil’s Lula-Iracema, one of the world’s largest deepwater finds. Guyana can “easily become the fourth largest oil producing nation in Latin America by the next decade, with chances to outperform the countries preceding it. If Venezuela and Mexico fail to address production declines, Guyana could quickly surpass them to number two,” said Luiz Hayum, research analyst with WoodMac’s Latin America upstream oil and gas team.

Chevron, for its part, is involved in giant oil projects in another country on the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, and holds major stakes in two giant oil fields—Tengiz and Karachaganak.

If the article mentioned "Kashagen" I missed it. But Kashagan Field is an offshore oil field in Kazakhstan's zone of the Caspian Sea. The field, discovered in 2000, is located in the northern part of the Caspian Sea close to Atyrau and is considered the world's largest discovery in the last 30 years, combined with the Tengiz Field.