BAKU- Oil production in Azerbaijan stood at 8.8 million tonnes in the first three months of the year, slightly down from a year ago, the Azeri energy ministry said on Wednesday.

The ministry said that oil output was down by 0.5 million tonnes from the same period a year ago. It added that 5.9 million tonnes of the total were extracted by the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli project led by British oil major BP BP.L .

State oil company SOCAR produced another 1.9 million tonnes and the remainder consisted of gas condensate, the ministry said.

Oil and condensate exports were down 320,000 tonnes to 7.3 million tonnes in January-March 2021, the ministry said. Natural gas exports were around 5 billion cubic metres, or 39.5% higher than a year ago.

The volume of Azeri gas exported to Turkey rose nearly 16% to 3 billion cubic metres in the first three months of the year, the ministry said.

(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Elaine Hardcastle) ((alexander.marrow@thomsonreuters.com;))