Azerbaijan, Baku, May 27 / Trend , E.Ismayilov/
Construction of the new platform in the Chirag oil project (COP), which will increase oil production at the block of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) is scheduled to begin next year, a senior official of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) said. The project costs $10 billion.
"This project has been developed. This year, the project has been determined in a certain section of budget expenditures, and immediate construction work will begin next year," the source said.
Currently, work is being conducted on preliminary calculations, on which the project is estimated at $10 billion. "But within a few years, the prices of construction materials can be changed. There may be some adjustments on decrease or increase," the source said.
Construction work, besides the construction of the platform, includes the construction of pipelines and drilling operations.
This project will provide an opportunity to maximize and intensify oil exploration in the block of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli fields.
The project may be sanctioned in late 2009. At present, the American KBR company is designing the COP. The American company will design new platform to be installed in the ACG. KBR has designed all previous phases of the development of the Azeri-Chiraq-Gunashli fields.
The COP, which envisages processing platform to be installed between Chirag-1 and DWG platforms, will enable to increase daily oil production in ACG up to 100,000 barrels. It is reckoned that the new Chirag Oil Project (COP) will add more than 300 million barrels of crude oil to the pipeline during the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) period.
The COP will consist of a new 48-slot drilling. The new platform design will be based on the previous successful platforms at ACG. It will be constructed based on the model of East Azeri platform.
The project will use existing infrastructure such as the offshore 30-inch oil export lines and 28-inch gas export lines plus the processing equipment at Sangachal.
The oil reserves of the project are estimated at 331 million barrels. As many as 28 producing wells and 17 pressure wells will be drilled from a new platform. The construction of the new platform is expected to end in 2013. The oil production will be launched in Q3 of 2013.
Advance boring is performed with Dada Gorgud floating drilling unit to speed up realization of the project.
Installation of new platforms in the ACG is important for the development of the Balakhany Svita. Two more platforms must be constructed for this purpose. One of the platforms will cover Chiraq and Deep-Water Gunashli and second - West, East and Central Azeri.
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