Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.3
By Emil Ismayilov - Trend:
The company SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) has no plans to restore the appraisal drilling within the framework of its plans to construct an underground gas storage facility in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (NAR) for now, a source in SOCAR told Trend Feb.3.
Exploratory drilling is conducted in the Tumbul area on the basis of deposits of Nehram salt field. Four exploration wells have been drilled in the area so far. It is planned to drill five wells within the framework of evaluation activities at the site in general. In total, it is planned to drill five wells within the appraisal drilling on the area.
"The renewal of appraisal drilling is not yet provided for 2015," said the source. "It is difficult to talk about the exact terms of the start of drilling of the last (fifth in a row) well."
Earlier, a source reported that drilling at the area may be started in 2015.
Azerbaijan currently implements swap gas supplies to Iran in order to supply NAR with gas. An underground gas storage facility set up on the basis of salt deposits was decided to ensure the sustainability of gas supply to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. Underground gas storage facility with a storage capacity of 200-300 million cubic meters will be sufficient to meet Nakhchivan's gas needs.
After completion of the evaluative drilling, a research will be carried out and the feasibility of creating a new object of gas storage will be determined.
In case of positive results, the process of creating the repository will take time because of the need to work on leaching of salt deposits and the creation of the necessary infrastructure, such as the installation of gas compressor stations and lying of necessary pipelines.
According to preliminary data, the depth of salt bedding is 52 meters here, while it is considered advisable to create underground gas storage already at a thickness of 40 meters of bedding, the first vice-president of SOCAR Khoshbakht Yusifzade said earlier.
Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic has been under siege because of the occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands by Armenia.
Currently, there are two underground gas storage facilities operating in Azerbaijan - Kalmaz and Garadagh, which allow to store more than 3.5 billion cubic meters of gas.
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