Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 27 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
The commissioning of new production well on the Shah Deniz offshore gas field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea will facilitate the process of balancing the output from the field, a source in the oil and gas market said.
The source said one more well will allow to balance production, as before finding markets for its sale, as well as during scheduled maintenance of one of the other four wells.
At present, the depth of the new well is 6,800 meters from the projected 7,000. The drilling work is expected to be completed by late 2010. Currently, gas production is executed from four wells. Daily gas production from the platform at Shah Deniz is roughly 20-23 million cubic meters. After commissioning new wells it can reach 25-26 million cubic meters per day.
There is also another well on the platform, which had previously been partially closed down due to poor technical condition. After drilling the SDA-06 wells, BP will start drilling the sidetrack of an earlier canned well.
Peak production is forecast at over 8.6-9 billion cubic meters. Gas production may be brought up to 25 billion cubic meters per year under the second stage of development.
Gas is transported to Georgia and Turkey via the South Caucasus Pipeline.
Shah Deniz field's reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The contract to develop Shah Deniz was signed June 4, 1996. Participants are BP (operator) - 25.5 percent, Statoil Hydro - 25.5 percent, NICO - 10 percent, Total - 10 percent, LukAgip - 10 percent, TPAO - 9 percent, and SOCAR - 10 percent.
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