It is somewhat ironic that the climate summit is being held in this country which is home to one of the largest oil-related engineering projects. COP29 began its decisive week in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, with the aim of improving financing from rich countries to the most disadvantaged so that they can deal with global warming and its consequences. The meeting is being held in a country that is one of the largest gas producers in the world and which It is also home to what is known as the Floating Oil City.a gigantic oil platform that was inaugurated decades ago, but which continues to exploit and extract the oil that lies beneath the Caspian Sea.
About 110 kilometers east of Baku in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea is Neft Dalari, also known as the Oil Rocks, a floating city built on oil platforms that span 12 kilometers long and 6 kilometers wide. What began in 1949 as an ambitious Soviet project to extract oil from shallow waters has become an engineering marvel. recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s first offshore oil platform. Interestingly, the region owes its original name, Pierres Noires, to the dark color of the rocks that emerge from the sea thanks to the natural taps of oil.
Neft Daslari (Oil rocks in English) It is not only an engineering feat, but also a human settlement in the middle of the sea. At its peak, it housed over 5,000 workers, who had complete infrastructure for their enjoyment and well-being . The city had residential buildings up to nine stories high, a theater with a capacity of 300 people, a library, a bakery, shops, a hospital, a football field and even a green park, created with earth transported from the continent. These facilities offered residents an independent and relatively comfortable living environment on the open sea.
As can be seen on the website of the Azerbaijan National Oil Company on November 7, the well produced a jet of oil which marked the world’s first offshore oil production. Azerbaijan is the first to exploit oil fields in the open part of the Caspian Sea, according to the page of SOCAR, the state oil company of Azerbaijan.
The process happened little by little, the platform (or floating city) developed. At the beginning everything was small conventional platform for crude oil extraction with a small shelter for workers to stay. What started as a single isolated platform began to expand its tentacles and new platforms, creating a huge platform with housing blocks. Major construction began to take place in 1951, giving rise to what some consider an architectural miracle.
oil production
Oil production at Neft Daslari peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, with daily extraction reaching 100,000 barrels. However, as time passed and resources were depleted, production declined significantly. According to data from SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s national oil company, current production is around 21,000 barrels per day.
These 21,000 barrels represent barely 5% of the country’s entire production. Although Azerbaijan’s oil industry has been in decline for several years due to the natural depletion of its deposits, the country continues to pump about 570,000 barrels of crude oil each day, an amount that makes it a net exporter , but which is a far cry from the years in which Baku produced around a million barrels per day.
However, the country’s authorities are making great efforts to attract investments and reverse this production trend. For now, so far in 2024, they have managed to produce a little more oil in the same period of 2023.
For example, Azerbaijan welcomed BP’s decision to invest in the country’s fields with great enthusiasm. The British oil company has already started production at a new $6 billion facility in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli oil field in Azerbaijan. Upgrading this field can increase the field’s production by up to 25%.. The facility, called Azeri-Central-East (ACE), consists of a new production platform located 130 kilometers offshore in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea (very close to the floating city). ACE currently has a single well drilled to a depth of 3,150 meters and two more wells that will be drilled this year, bringing ACE’s daily production to approximately 24,000 barrels per day, according to BP.
Although new discoveries and new deposits are drawing attention away from the floating oil city, the truth is that the uniqueness of Neft Daslari has attracted the attention of filmmakers and documentarians. In 2009, Swiss filmmaker Marc Wolfensberger directed the documentary “Oil Rocks: City Above the Sea”which explores the history and special beauty of this floating city on the Caspian Sea.
Over the decades, Neft Daslari has faced significant challenges, including erosion and wear and tear of its structures due to harsh maritime conditions. It is estimated that around two thirds of the original infrastructure has already become useless due to marine erosion. However, the city still exists, a testament to Soviet engineering and human determination to exploit natural resources under extreme conditions.
