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CENTRAL ASIA
Lady at market stall
Brief history of the country
Armenia (the Republic of Armenia) in the South Caucasus is bordered by Turkey (west), Georgia (north), Azerbaijan (east), and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan (south).
Inhabited since before 4000 BC, Armenia had become a country by 590 BC and achieved self rule from 189 to 69 BC before being absorbed into a succession of empires. It adopted Christianity around 300 AD. In 1045 it was conquered by Turks followed by repeated invasions from the east.
In 1639 it was split into Eastern Armenia, ruled by Iran, and Western Armenia, ruled by the Ottomans. Massacres of Christian Armenians occurred in the west after 1894, ending in the Armenian Genocide in World War 1 prior to collapse of the Ottoman empire. Eastern Armenia had ceded to Russia in 1828.
After the Russian revolution the country became a republic. Its acquisition of parts of Ottoman Armenia and Turkey led the Soviets to invade and it was annexed (with Georgia and Azerbaijan) into the Soviet Union in 1922, becoming the Armenia SSR in 1936.
The collapse of the USSR in 1991 triggered independence but its support for Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan, as the Republic of Artsakh harmed the economy. A war in 2020 and a blockade in 2023 resulted in the dissolution of Nagorno-Karabakh on 1st January 2024 and the exodus of almost its entire Armenian population.
Trading routes through Iran and Georgia allow exports but the country relies heavily on remittances from Armenians abroad.
Oil and gas summary
Armenia is land-locked, located in the north-east of the Armenian Highlands within the South Caucasus mountain range. The terrain is mostly mountainous rising to 4,090 m at Mount Aragats. No point is below 390 m. Mount Ararat, now in Turkey but once part of Armenia, is the highest mountain in the region.
The South Caucasus (also known as Transcaucasia) is the southern volcanic part of the Caucasus mountain range (Lesser Caucasus) plus its lowlands between the continents of Europe and Asia.
It extends southwards from the Greater Caucasus of southwestern Russia to the Turkish and Armenian borders and from the Black Sea in the west to the Caspian Sea coast of Iran in the east. All of Armenia is in the South Caucasus along with the majority of Georgia and Azerbaijan
Armenia has no identified indigenous oil or gas resources in its mountainous volcanic terrain which is prone to earthquakes. It has been the site of very few exploration wells and Globalshift believes it is unlikely to achieve any production in the future.
ARMENIA
Map and National Flag
Central Asia
Capital
Population
Land area (sq kms)
Oil prod (000s b/d)
Gas prod (bcm/yr)
Oil cons (000s b/d)
Gas cons (bcm/yr)
Yerevan
3.1 mm
29,743
None
None
49
2.6
Government
Armenia is a semi-presidential democratic republic. The President is head of state of a multi-party system.
The unicameral National Assembly is the legislative branch of the government with 131 members elected for 5-year terms.
The government department in Armenia responsible for oil and gas resources is the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources although this ministry is primarily concerned with minerals and power.
Geology and History of Exploration
Land-locked Armenia lies within the South Caucasus geological region which is the southern part of the Caucasus mountain range, known as the Lesser Caucasus, plus its lowlands between the continents of Europe and Asia.
The Caucasus Mountains extend from southeastern Europe into Asia and were formed as the Arabian tectonic plate moved northwards and collided with the Eurasian tectonic plate.
The northern Greater Caucasus mountains comprise folded Cretaceous and Jurassic sediments with older Paleozoic and Precambrian basement exposed at higher altitude. All the sediments in the Tethys basin were first uplifted in the Late Miocene during the Alpine orogeny to form the Greater Caucasus Mountains.
The Lesser Caucasus, largely volcanic, Mountains are overlain by younger Paleogene sediments and volcanics. They were created during the Late Triassic to Late Jurassic during the earlier Cimmerian orogeny at the margin of the Tethys Ocean. The later Alpine orogeny also caused uplift along with the Cenozoic volcanism.
The Armenian highland was flooded by basalts and andesites in the Pliocene with the highest summits formed as Pleistocene-Pliocene volcanoes. The entire region in Armenia is still subjected to strong earthquakes from this activity.
Small depressions lie in the centre and west of the country, in particular the Ararat Depression which mostly lies in Turkey. However, there has been no commercial success in the few wells drilled in the depressions. This is due to poor reservoir development and complex small traps. Globalshift to consider that Armenia has no oil and gas potential.
History - Oil and gas production occurs in all surrounding countries but Armenia has achieved no production itself. From 1947 to 1953 the Soviets ran gravity and magnetic surveys and a few wells were drilled in the early 1950s. Seismic surveys were then undertaken between 1961 and 1968 with nearly 1,000 kms of basic data acquired.
In 1966, additional gravity data identified small basins in the mountain valleys including the Octemberian and Near-Araks basins in the west within the Ararat Depression. These lie mostly in Turkey but around 10 wells were drilled on a prospect in the Octemberian basin in Armenia up to 1974 which flowed non-commercial gas.
A second phase of exploration started in 1981 driven by onshore discoveries in Georgia and Azerbaijan. During 1981 to 1990 around 2,250 kms of seismic data were acquired and over 50 shallow stratigraphic wells were drilled plus 3 deep wells, that took a very long time to drill.
A well on the Shorakhbiur anticline in the central Armenian depression was reported to have had oil shows and another well on the Octemberian anticline was reported to have had gas shows.