Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 18 / Trend E. Ismayilov /
Danish Maersk Drilling, which acts as an operator of the Heydar Aliyev floating drilling rig, will continue working within drilling the first exploration well on the Absheron field till the end of October, SOCAR first vice-president for geophysics, geology and mining Khoshbakht Yusifzade told press on Tuesday.
It is planned to drill a sidetrack to a depth of 1,500 meters to get more detailed information about the field from the same well at a depth of 4,000 meters.
In September this year, Azerbaijan announced the discovery of large gas reserves on the Absheron field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
The field's potential reserves hit 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million ton of condensate. Accordingly, Azerbaijan's proven gas reserves rose to 2.55 trillion cubic meters.
Participants in Absheron are SOCAR (40 percent), Total (40 percent), and Gaz De France Suez (20 percent).
The contract on the Absheron Field was signed on Feb. 27, 2009, between SOCAR and Total. Later Total sold 20 percent of its equity participation to Gaz De France Suez.