Premium Content One Of The World’s Oldest Oil Regions Is Being Reinvigorated By Viktor Katona - Jan 30, 2021, 2:00 PM CST Whilst much of the Caspian is struggling to come out of COVID-induced hibernation, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan settling one of the region’s longest-standing maritime disputes has finally brought a spark to one of the world’s oldest producing regions. The Sardar/Kyapaz block, discovered in 1986 by Soviet geologists at a total depth of 5km and contested for most of the subsequent period, straddles their maritime border, abutting the Azeri field of the ACG complex. By signing a memorandum of understanding on the disputed block and by simultaneously renaming it to “Dostluk” (Friendship), Baku and Ashgabat are signaling that past grievances should be left behind for the purpose of greater good and greater (shared) profits. The move to jointly develop the Dostluk field did not come as a complete surprise, following President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s visit to Baku in March 2020, though it was never confirmed that the field was on the tapis during the talks. Dostluk has had several names throughout its existence, initially identified in 1959-1960 in the same string of appraisal events as Azerbaijan’s flagship group of fields, ACG. Initially the assumption was that Dostluk will be named after the Communist October Revolution, however, an even less illuminating name caught on, Promezhutochnaya (Russian for “intermediary”). Needless to say, by 1991 the field boasted at least 80 MMbbls in recoverable reserves therefore in the post-Soviet period the relations between Baku and Ashgabat were not always as rosy as they seem to be today.