Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.14 / Trend, E. Ismayilov /
Drilling of exploration well in the prospective gas condensate structure "Absheron" in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea will start in late January next year, Rovnag Abdullayev, the head of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) said on Saturday.
Previously it was supposed that drilling will start in September this year.
Abdullayev said the delay in drilling is due to the fact that Maersk Drilling - the operator of the Heydar Aliyev drilling installation, which will carry out exploratory drilling in the "Absheron", is conducting operations in Kazakhstan's sector of the Caspian Sea, which covers a period of four months.
By late January the drilling installation will be brought to Azerbaijan, after which exploration drilling will be launched in the prospective structure, Abdullayev said.
The installation is now drilling in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea to drill an exploration well on the Rakushechnoye-sea structure, the source in oil and gas market said earlier.
According to estimates of SOCAR's geologists, the reserves of the Absheron structure are estimated at 300 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million tons of condensate.
The Absheron bloc is located about 100 km from Baku at a depth of 500 meters.
Participants in Absheron are the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic - 40 percent, Total - 40 percent and Gaz De France Suez - 20 percent.
The contract on the Absheron field signed Feb. 27, 2009 between SOCAR and Total. Later Total sold 20 percent of its equity participation in the contract to the company Gaz De France Suez.
This is the second attempt of foreign companies to start production of commercially attractive hydrocarbon prospective structure "Absheron". In 1997, the first PSA contract was signed for exploration and development of this area. The contract was signed between SOCAR and U.S. ChevronTexaco. SOCAR has received 50 percent of equity participation, U.S. ChevronTexaco (30 percent - the company was the operator of the project) and TOTAL - 20 percent. But after drilling, reserves were considered commercially unattractive, after which the contract was closed.