London: A BP-led oil group has stopped oil production at a Caspian Sea oil platform as a precaution after discovering problems with fire-fighting water pumps, a spokesman said on Wednesday.
"The problems were discovered during a routine testing... There was no incident," the spokesman said.
He said production was suspended on Saturday and would not restart before problems were fully fixed.
Chastened industry
Oil majors' offshore operations came under tight global scrutiny after an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and unleashed the worst oil spill in US history.
The spill wiped about $70 billion (Dh257.117 billion) from BP's market value and spurred BP to replace its Chief Executive Tony Hayward with an American, Bob Dudley.
The spill spurred a moratorium on all new US offshore drilling and prompted the European Union to start considering new rules for offshore drilling.
Azerbaijan, which relies heavily on oil revenues, has said it would continue cooperating with BP and other majors on the Caspian Sea, home to dozens of endangered species and the bulk of the world's black caviar production.
Vital platform
The Chirag platform produces around 90,000 barrels per day and is part of Azerbaijan's largest oil project, known as ACG or Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli.
The ACG project was key in helping Azerbaijan become a significant oil player with production exceeding a landmark level of one million barrels a day last year.
The project is the main source of crude for the giant pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan but Chirag pumps to a different port, the Black Sea port of Supsa.
90
thousand bpd is the Chirag platform's output
1m
bpd production achieved by Azerbaijan last year
