Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.27 /Trend E.Ismayilov/
The need for free floating plant to provide maintenance services increases due to the increased number of wells with subsea completion in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, a source in oil and gas market told Trend on Saturday.
According to the source, the fulfillment of the second stage of development of the Azerbaijani gas condensate field Shah Deniz envisages drilling wells with subsea completion, which requires the free floating plant to render repair and maintenance services in the future.
"Availability of the free plant is necessary," the source said.
The source said even if there is modern equipment and infrastructure will require after time it will require upgrading and repair, which explains the need for free plant.
SOCAR earlier took the main decision to invest in the construction of a new, latest generation drilling rig to be used for the drilling of exploration and operating wells at sea depth of up to 1000 metres.
There are many promising structures in the Caspian where exploration drilling works are necessary. To accomplish this goal, it is essential to use a new drilling rig capable of operating at a large depth.
Construction of such a rig is valued at $500,000. The Heydar Aliyev drilling rig which is the latest one built in the Caspian was valued at $250 million, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said earlier.
The field's reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters during the first stage.
The contract to develop Shah Deniz was signed June 4, 1996. Participants are BP (operator) - 25.5 percent, Statoil - 25.5 percent, NICO - 10 percent, Total - 10 percent, LukAgip - 10 percent, TPAO - 9 percent, and SOCAR - 10 percent.