TotalEnergies, SOCAR and XRG Take Final Investment Decision on Absheron Gas Expansion

TotalEnergies, Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR and ADNOC’s international investment arm XRG have taken the final investment decision for the full-field development of the Absheron gas and condensate field in the Caspian Sea, the partners announced on September 26 at the Azerbaijan International Investment Forum in Baku. The expansion will roughly quadruple gas output from the field and bring on stream in 2029, with production earmarked for both Azerbaijan’s domestic market and export to Turkey.

Quadrupling output from a field already in production

Absheron sits in the Caspian Sea about 100 kilometers southeast of Baku and holds an estimated 140 billion cubic meters of recoverable gas. A first phase, brought on stream in 2023 through a single subsea well, currently produces 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year (bcma) along with 12,000 barrels per day of condensate. The full-field development approved this weekend will add three more subsea wells and a new onshore processing facility, lifting capacity to 6 bcma of gas and 47,000 barrels per day of condensate — a fourfold increase in gas volumes once the expansion is complete. TotalEnergies, which operates the project, holds 35% alongside an equal 35% stake for SOCAR and 30% for XRG.

A supply line that already reaches Turkey

According to TotalEnergies, the additional gas will move through existing infrastructure connecting Azerbaijan to Turkey and on to European markets — the same corridor that Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field has used for years to ship gas to Turkey and Europe via the South Caucasus Pipeline, TANAP and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline. Routing Absheron volumes through that established network means the new gas can reach buyers without a separate pipeline build-out, at a time when Turkey’s gas import mix has become a closely watched question amid broader efforts across the region to diversify supply away from Russia and reduce exposure to the kind of price spikes that have hit northern European gas markets this year.

That corridor has taken on added weight since 2022, when the European Union began looking to Azerbaijan as one of the alternatives to Russian pipeline gas. The Trans Adriatic Pipeline carries Azerbaijani gas onward into Greece, Albania and Italy, while the South Caucasus Pipeline and TANAP handle the overland leg through Georgia and Turkey. Absheron’s gas is a separate stream from the Shah Deniz volumes that currently fill that corridor, so the extra output gives SOCAR and its partners more gas to work with as they weigh how much of the field’s production stays in Turkey and how much continues west.

Why XRG is doubling down in the Caspian

XRG, the international investment vehicle Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC set up in 2024 to build a global gas, LNG and chemicals portfolio outside the UAE, took a 30% stake in Absheron’s first phase and is now increasing its exposure with the full-field expansion. For SOCAR, the project keeps a second major gas asset — separate from the long-running Shah Deniz development — moving toward higher output as the state company works to sustain Azerbaijan’s role as a gas supplier to both its domestic market and Turkey. TotalEnergies said the project’s operating emissions intensity is expected to stay below 4 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent, a figure the company highlighted as it continues to expand gas production in the Caspian.

Sources

• TotalEnergies newsroom, “Azerbaijan: TotalEnergies Announces Final Investment Decision for Absheron Full Field Development,” September 26, 2026 — ownership stakes, reserve and production figures, startup timeline, emissions intensity. totalenergies.com
• Reuters, via TradingView News, “SOCAR, TotalEnergies and XRG take final investment decision for Absheron gas field,” September 26, 2026 — independent confirmation of the FID and forum announcement. tradingview.com
• GCC Business News, “XRG backs major Azerbaijan gas expansion with Absheron investment,” September 2026 — additional detail on XRG’s role. gccbusinessnews.com
• The Daily Energy’s earlier coverage of Turkey’s gas supply mix and this year’s European gas price volatility — regional supply context.

Illustrative image. Photo: Gulustan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source